IN  MEMOMAM 
Charles  Edward   Rugh 
1867-1938 


Professor  of  Education 
Jniversity  of  California 


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Ll.THER  HALSKY  GUUCK 


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A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 


BY 

LUTHER  HALSEY  GULICK,  M.D. 


WITH    A   FOREWORD 
BY 

JOSEPH  LEE 


ASSOCIATION     PRESS 

New   York:    347    Madison    Avenue 
1920 


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Copyright,  1920,  bt 
CHARLOTTE  VETTER  GULICK 


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FOREWORD 

If  you  want  to  know  what  a  child  is,  study 
his  play;  if  you  want  to  affect  what  he  shall  be, 
direct  the  form  of  play.  These  are  the  princi- 
ples enunciated  in  the  first  chapter  of  this  book, 
and  abundantly  enforced  in  those  that  follow. 

To  those  of  us  who  are  interested  in  the  recre- 
ation movement,  the  book  comes  as  the  last 
message  of  the  master;  to  all  Doctor  Gulick's 
fellow  citizens  it  is  the  legacy  of  an  American 
pioneer  in  the  vitally  important  field  of  educa- 
tion. It  has  behind  it  twenty  years  of  study 
and  experiment.  It  is  the  fruit  of  observation, 
not  of  the  photographic  sort,  but  carried  on 
with  an  uncanny  X-ray  power  of  intuition,  and 
yet  without  losing  that  'innocence  of  the  eye' 
— the  power  of  seeing  what  is  there,  not  what 
you  expect  to  see — so  necessary  to  fresh  dis- 
covery. 

The  authoritative  value  of  Doctor  Gulick's 
opinions  may  be  partly  judged  from  his  practical 
experience  as  an  innovator.  I  suppose  that  in 
laying  down,  when  he  was  teaching  at  the  In- 
ternational   Y.    M.    C.    A.    Training-School    in 

V 


vi  FOREWORD 

Springfield,  the  principles  out  of  which  the  game 
of  basket-ball  was  there  evolved,  he  became  the 
only  man  who  has  ever  through  deliberate  ac- 
tion added  to  our  too  short  list  of  major  sports. 
His  New  York  Public  Schools  Athletic  League, 
a  pioneer  institution,  has  grown  and  prospered. 
His  Camp  Fire  Girls  represent  a  long  step 
toward  the  discovery  of  the  girl.  The  Play- 
ground and  Recreation  Association  of  America, 
of  which  he  was  a  principal  founder,  has  led 
in  the  development  of  play  and  recreation  in 
this  country.  His  teaching  has,  through  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  other  organizations,  been  a 
great  influence  in  the  social  and  physical  train- 
ing of  the  American  armies  in  the  great  war,  and 
has  profoundly  influenced  the  morale  of  the 
men.  His  death  resulted  from  personal  devo- 
tion to  this  object  in  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work  in 
France. 

Doctor  Gulick's  heresy,  in  describing  Froebel 
as  having  evolved  his  educational  methods  with- 
out first  observing  the  child's  actual  play,  which, 
in  fact,  Froebel  spent  fifteen  years  in  studying, 
and  in  criticising  Froebel's  games  as  not  actu- 
ally played  by  the  children  outside  the  kin- 
dergarten— ignoring  Froebel's  whole  intention, 
which  was  not  to  invent  new  children's  games 
but  to  utilize  the  form  of  children's  games  to 


FOREWORD  vii 

carry  their  education  on  beyond — will  be  for- 
given by  all  true  Froebellians,  who  will  recognize 
in  Doctor  Gulick  a  most  potent  ally  in  the  pro- 
mulgation of  some  of  their  dearest  principles. 

It  is  most  fortunate  that  Miss  Anna  L.  von 
der  Osten,  who  worked  with  Doctor  Gulick  in 
the  original  preparation  of  this  manuscript,  has 
generously  given  her  time  to  the  final  editing  of 
the  manuscript  and  to  the  careful  reading  of  the 
proof.  Every  reader  of  the  book  will  be  in- 
debted to  her  for  this  effective  service. 

The  book  is  not  for  physical  educators  alone, 

but  for  fathers   and   mothers,   school-teachers, 

social  workers,  and  lovers  of  children  and  grown 

children  everywhere.  T  T 

J  Joseph  Lee. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Foreword v 

Introduction xi 

CHAPTEB 

I.    The  Extent  of  the  Play  Interest     .  1 

II.     Separation  vs.  Concentration  ...  12 

III.  Hunting  and  Fighting  Plays     ...  16 

IV.  Playing  House 33 

V.    Fire  Play 49 

VI.     Toys — Construction  and  Ownership    .  67 

VII.     Masculine  and  Feminine  Differences  83 

VIII.     The  Play  of  Animals 99 

IX.     The  Play  of  Adults 113 

X.     The  Play  of  Subnormal  Children       .  128 

XI.     Play  Progression 141 

XII.     Play  and  Physical  Growth        .      .      .  155 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIII.  Play  and  Education 171 

XIV.  Play  and  Moral  Growth      ....  184 
XV.     Instinct  and  Tradition  in  Play     .     .  197 

XVI.     Play  and  Our  Changing  Civilization  211 

XVII.     Play  and  the  Modern  City       .      .     .  224 

XVIII.    Direction    and    Control    in    Play — 

Playgrounds 230 

XIX.    Play  and  Democracy 243 

XX.     Play,  the  Pursuit  of  the  Ideal    .     .  266 

Index 283 


INTRODUCTION 

My  professional  connection  with  physical 
training,  athletics,  and  games  dating  from  1886 
to  1906,  gave  opportunity  and  incentive  for  the 
study  of  play  in  many  of  its  aspects.  I  was  led 
to  ask  many  questions.  Why  do  boys  give  to 
play  so  much  greater  earnestness  and  zest  than 
they  give  to  work?  Why  do  Americans  play 
baseball  and  the  English  cricket?  Why  have 
women  never  had  a  great  team  game?  Why 
are  the  Anglo-Saxons  the  only  peoples  who  have 
developed  team  games,  polo  and  lacrosse  ex- 
cepted ?  Is  it  by  heredity  or  environment  that 
boys  play  fighting  games  and  girls  play  with 
dolls?  What  is  play?  How  are  play  customs 
formed  ?  How  are  they  passed  on  through  the 
generations  ?  Can  the  underlying  forces  of  play 
be  so  well  understood  that  they  may  be  applied 
in  other  directions,  in  education  or  morals? 
What  light  does  a  study  of  play  throw  on  the 
nature  of  the  player? 

To  the  answering  of  questions  such  as  these 
the  bulk  of  my  available  time  and  attention  was 
given  for  over  twenty  years.     In  this  volume 


XI 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

my  aim  is  to  give  to  others  what  I  can  of  my 
conclusions  and  of  the  data  upon  which  they 
rest.  I  have  not  hesitated,  however,  to  state 
some  conclusions,  the  data  for  which  are  not 
given  here. 

In  studying  play  I  have  come  to  believe  that 
it  affords  the  best  and  most  profitable  way  of 
studying  humankind  itself,  both  individuals  and 
races.  Play  consists  of  that  which  people  do 
when  they  have  food,  shelter,  and  clothing,  are 
rested  and  free  from  worry,  when  the  physical 
compulsions  of  life  are  removed  temporarily  and 
the  spirit  is  free  to  search  for  its  own  satisfac- 
tions. Then  man  is  at  his  best.  The  pursuit 
of  food,  shelter,  clothing,  and  safety  is  in  the 
main  the  means  to  life;  but  these  things  are  not 
the  end  for  which  life  seems  to  exist.  For  this 
reason  I  believe  that  man  is  better  revealed  by 
his  play,  or  by  the  use  he  makes  of  his  leisure 
time,  than  by  any  one  other  index. 

The  way  in  which  the  spirit  of  man  works 
when  it  is  free  from  the  shackles  of  compulsion 
is  not  accounted  for  by  any  of  the  present-day 
systems  of  psychology.  In  play  we  see  the  ac- 
tion of  great  desires,  operating  with  indifference 
to  consciousness  or  intelligence;  the  intellect  is 
used  as  a  tool  with  which  to  accomplish  ends, 
rather  than  as  a  guide.     Bergson  and  the  prag- 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

m-atists  seem  to  have  come  nearer  this  concep- 
tion than  have  the  psychologists. 

The  origin  and  development  of  gangs  and 
team  games  among  boys  similarly  present  facts 
that  do  not  seem  to  harmonize  with  the  views 
of  contemporary  sociologists.  Gumplowitz  alone 
discusses  the  relations  of  the  individual  to  the 
group,  the  growth  of  morals  versus  rights,  in  a 
way  consistent  with  the  facts  as  I  have  observed 
them. 

I  am  stating  my  conclusions  at  the  start,  for 
few  readers  will  be  equally  interested  in  all 
parts  of  these  studies,  and  yet  the  conclusions 
themselves  may  shed  light  upon  the  various 
parts  and  may  thus  serve  as  a  guide. 

I  have  not  neglected  the  literature  of  play, 
having  read,  I  think,  all  that  has  been  carefully 
written  on  the  subject  in  English,  French,  and 
German.  Most  of  these  contributions  seem  to 
me  to  be  without  deep  value  because:  1.  The 
writer  had  formed  his  theories  before  he  had 
secured  his  facts,  and  hence  bent  the  facts  to 
conform.  2.  He  was  acquainted  with  but  a  few 
aspects  of  the  facts.  3.  He  recorded  facts,  but 
did  not  attempt  to  interpret  them.  4.  In  most 
cases  the  writers  on  play  and  sport  have  not 
sufficient  knowledge  to  see  the  essential  facts. 
The  students  of  play,  as  I  have  studied  them, 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

have  spent  far  more  time  at  the  desk  than  in 
watching  players.  Because  the  conclusions  set 
forth  in  this  book  are  based  in  the  main  on  the 
first-hand  observation  or  experience  of  facts,  I 
quote  authority  but  little. 

CONCLUSIONS 

I.  My  first  conclusion  has  been  stated  al- 
ready in  part.  The  individual  is  more  com- 
pletely revealed  in  play  than  in  any  one  other 
way;  and  conversely,  play  has  a  greater  shaping 
power  over  the  character  and  nature  of  man 
than  has  any  one  other  activity.  A  man  shows 
what  he  really  is  when  he  is  free  to  do  what  he 
chooses,  and  if  a  person  can  be  influenced  so 
that  his  highest  aspirations — which  are  followed 
when  he  is  free  to  pursue  his  ideals — are  a  gain, 
then  character  is  being  shaped  profoundly. 

II.  A  people  most  truly  reveals  itself  in  the 
character  of  its  pleasures.  The  pleasures  of  a 
people  are  not  the  sum  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
individuals  who  compose  that  people,  just  as 
the  psychology  of  the  crowd  is  quite  different 
from  the  psychology  of  the  individuals  compos- 
ing the  crowd. 

Conversely,  the  manner  of  its  pleasures  is  the 
most  character-determining  force  within  a  peo- 
ple.    Chinese  characteristics  are  not  biologically 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

inherited,  as  we  know  by  the  results  of  cross 
adaptation.  Chinese  characteristics  are  race 
tradition  inheritances  passed  on  predominantly 
by  the  plays  and  games  of  the  Chinese  children. 
Embedded  here  in  the  amber  of  tradition  is  the 
quintessence  of  that  which  is  Chinese.  It  passes 
to  the  child  by  the  turn  of  an  ancient  phrase, 
the  mode  of  seeing  the  world  as  indicated  in  a 
century-old  story,  or  the  muscular  movements 
of  a  ceremonial  greeting.  I  doubt  if  any  of  us 
understand  the  feelings  of  the  Orientals  who 
did  not  as  children  play  Oriental  games  in  an 
Oriental  atmosphere,  with  Oriental  children. 

III.  It  is  an  impression  which  has  been  grow- 
ing during  my  years  of  observation,  that  the 
individual  is  more  an  agent  in  life  than  a  direct- 
ing force.  It  seems  that  certain  great  desires 
engulf  the  individual,  directing  his  will,  his  pur- 
poses, to  their  own  ends,  with  but  slight  regard 
for  the  benefit  of  the  individual  himself.  These 
desires  come  in  great  waves,  growing  larger  and 
farther  apart  as  the  years  pass  from  infancy  to 
old  age.  Each  of  these  great  waves  or  tides  of 
desire  raises  the  level  of  the  psychic  range  and 
power  of  the  individual,  and  makes  the  next 
one  possible.  These  waves  also  in  a  general 
way  seem  to  mark  the  successive  periods  of 
progress  of  prehistoric  man.     In  this  sense  each 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

individual  recapitulates  the  history  of  his  kind, 
both  in  individual  growth  and  in  social  rela- 

10ns'  Luther  Halsey  Gulick. 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 


/ 


. 


A  Philosophy  of  Play 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  PLAY  INTEREST 

IN  the  spring  of  the  year  occurs  a  series  of 
events  to  which  more  space  is  given  in 
many  of  the  newspapers  which  record  the 
world's  happenings  than  would  be  given  to  a 
State  election.  In  normal  times  when  the  base- 
ball games  between  the  large  cities  of  America 
begin,  the  reports  of  their  Saturday  scores  take 
precedence  over  almost  all  other  news  in  the 
minds  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men.  Men 
and  boys  will  stand  in  groups  miles  away  from 
the  game,  watching,  throughout  the  afternoon, 
while  the  scores  are  flashed  upon  a  screen.  This 
enthusiasm  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  ac- 
tual utility  of  the  game.  A  similar  interest  was 
shown  in  the  Jeffries-Johnson  fight.  All  over 
the  United  States  men  were  discussing  it,  men 
who  did  not  see  it  when  it  took  place,  whose 
lives  and  business  it  could  never  touch  in  any 
possible   way.     And   this   discussion   continued 


2  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

for  over  a  year.  An  unusual  and  apparently 
uncalled-for  interest  of  this  kind  seems  to  need 
some  explanation. 

In  the  fall  the  great  college  football  games  be- 
gin. They  occupy  but  slightly  less  space  in  the 
newspapers  than  do  the  intercity  baseball  con- 
tests. But  their  effect  in  the  college  world  is 
even  greater.  Before  an  important  game  each 
college  holds  football  rallies.  In  many  univer- 
sities more  students  are  present  at  these  rallies 
than  at  any  other  student  meeting  of  the  year. 
They  learn  songs  and  cheers;  they  encourage  the 
players.  On  the  day  of  the  game  thirty  or 
forty  thousand  spectators  may  frequently  be 
seen  in  the  bleachers  watching  a  football  match 
between  two  of  the  large  Eastern  colleges,  or 
two  of  the  Middle  West  State  universities.  At 
the  first  important  play  the  entire  crowd  arises 
and  remains  standing,  breathless,  lest  a  play  be 
lost.  The  student  bands  lead  in  the  college 
songs  and  the  cheer  leaders  w^ear  their  throats 
hoarse  in  the  effort  to  direct  enthusiasm.  A 
man  on  the  field  is  knocked  out;  his  substitute 
is  put  on.  The  students  cheer  for  both  men  by 
name,  but  the  man  who  is  removed  from  play  is 
frequently  carried  off  in  tears,  which  no  one 
thinks  for  a  moment  of  attributing  to  the  pain 
of  any  wounds  he  may  have  sustained.     He  is 


EXTENT  OF  THE  PLAY  INTEREST    3 

heart-broken  for  one  reason  only — because  he  is 
out  of  the  game. 

A  friend  who  witnessed  one  of  the  great  games 
in  which  Chicago  University  lost  the  Western 
Championship  says  that  she  never  had  seen 
such  compelling  enthusiasm  as  filled  the  stu- 
dents. After  the  defeat  there  was  a  moment's 
silence,  then  a  cheer  was  given  by  the  team  for 
their  victorious  opponents,  and  then  a  thousand 
young  men  and  women  broke  spontaneously 
into  the  Alma  Mater  and  marched  off  the  field 
with  the  band  playing.  Fully  one-third  of  them 
were  crying  from  the  nervous  excitement  of  the 
occasion.  It  was  not  merely  college  loyalty 
that  prompted  this  demonstration.  A  victory 
in  debate  would  have  aroused  enthusiasm,  but 
not  in  an  equal  measure.  A  convincing  proof 
of  the  superiority  of  their  institution  to  all 
others  in  scholarship — the  supposedly  real  test 
of  a  university — would  elicit  barely  a  cheer. 
The  spirit  shown  in  the  game  goes  much  deeper, 
and  seems  sufficiently  significant  to  demand 
consideration. 

Playing  baseball  on  the  streets  of  New  York 
is  forbidden  by  a  city  ordinance.  Yet  every 
day  during  the  spring  a  large  proportion  of  the 
boys  brought  before  the  judge  of  the  Children's 
Court  are  there  for  the  crime  of  playing  ball. 


4  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

The  black-robed  judge  questions  them  from  be- 
hind a  high  desk;  a  big  policeman  stands  near 
to  give  testimony.  The  boys  are  in  the  posi- 
tion of  lawbreakers,  yet  most  of  them  are  de- 
cent, respectable  boys,  frequently  very  young 
and  much  frightened.  There  is  another  game 
called  "  Cat,"  which  consists  in  striking  a  pointed 
stick,  with  the  end  in  view  of  sending  it  a  cer- 
tain distance  in  a  given  direction.  It  is  not  a 
very  thrilling  game,  apparently,  yet  it  furnishes 
sometimes  as  many  as  one-seventh  of  the  total 
arrests  of  the  court.  The  boys  have  risked 
arrest  to  play  it. 

In  one  of  the  crowded  city  playgrounds  of 
New  York,  where  the  boys  were  so  close  that  it 
was  impossible  to  see  through  the  group  for  ten 
yards  in  any  direction,  several  games  of  ball 
were  going  on.  Every  time  the  ball  was  hit, 
it  was  either  lost  in  the  crowd  or  it  rolled  under 
the  iron  railing,  and  had  to  be  tossed  in  by  a 
boy  outside.  Clearly,  no  real  game  was  possi- 
ble; and  yet  the  boys  were  attempting  it.  In 
a  near-by  street  the  sidewalks  were  covered  with 
baseball  games.  Here  stood  a  batter,  a  few 
yards  away  a  pitcher,  and  close  behind  the 
pitcher  was  the  catcher  for  another  game. 
There  were  seven  games  of  ball  going  on  at  the 
same  time  on  the  sidewalk  on  one  side  of  a 


EXTENT  OF  THE  PLAY  INTEREST    5 

single  block.  Regardless  of  cars,  trucks,  and 
automobiles,  the  boys  dodged  across  the  street 
after  the  ball  whenever  the  batter  was  fortunate 
enough  to  hit  it. 

Suddenly,  far  up  the  street,  one  of  the  games 
stopped,  then  the  next,  then  the  next.  The  boys 
slipped  away  by  twos  and  threes  into  alleys  and 
cellar-doors.  A  street-car  went  by  with  a  po- 
liceman on  the  front  platform.  After  he  had 
passed  the  boys  reappeared  and  the  games  went 
on.  Those  boys  were  not  lawbreakers  at  heart. 
Their  mothers  and  fathers  were  sitting  on  the 
stoops  watching  their  play,  and  approving  it. 
The  games  were  going  on  under  every  conceiv- 
able difficulty.  An  instinct  strong  enough  to 
impel  boys  to  play  baseball  under  conditions  like 
these  is  worthy  of  attention. 

A  gang  to  which  I  belonged  as  a  boy,  was 
called  the  Boys'  Jolly  Club.  We  spent  a  large 
part  of  our  free  time  hunting  English  sparrows. 
There  is  a  delight  in  shooting  a  sparrow,  pulling 
off  its  feathers,  cooking  and  eating  it,  half-done, 
that  is  not  found  in  all  the  food  from  mother's 
pantry.  We  would  also  go  through  the  woods 
to  hunt  squirrels,  with  a  little  .22-caliber  rifle, 
ten,  twelve,  fourteen  hours  in  succession.  When 
we  ate  our  lunch  we  finished  it  as  quickly  as 
possible,  because  we  might  get  another  squirrel. 


6  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

We  did  not  need  the  squirrels.  I  did  indeed  de- 
vise a  kind  of  justification  for  myself — I  always 
made  a  point  of  saving  the  skin  and  getting  some 
one  to  eat  the  squirrel.  But  I  did  not  need  the 
skins  and  I  did  not  need  the  food.  Yet  I  had 
this  desire  to  hunt,  although  my  feelings  about 
hunting  are  not  particularly  strong. 

These  feelings  are  not  confined  to  children.  I 
have  never  yet,  day  or  night,  gone  by  the  docks 
on  the  Hudson  River  without  seeing  men  sit- 
ting there  waiting  for  fish  to  bite.  There  are 
little  boys  and  gray-haired  men.  I  have  gone 
up  close  to  the  docks  at  ten  or  eleven  o'clock 
at  night,  and  even  then  have  found  some  indi- 
viduals fishing.  No  doubt  there  are  times  in 
the  day  when  people  do  not  fish,  but  I  have 
never  discovered  such  times.  I  have  never  seen 
it  rain  hard  enough  to  clear  the  docks  of  men 
who  were  fishing.  One  of  my  friends  was  a 
Springfield  banker.  Once  when  he  had  a  day's 
vacation  he  came  to  a  small  lake  near  our  house 
and  sat  in  the  rain  all  day  fishing.  He  got  a 
little  string  of  perch  averaging  five  inches.  Yet 
he  had  a  glorious  time.  Most  of  the  men 
who  fish  on  the  Hudson  are  not  doing  it  because 
they  need  the  fish.  They  are  doing  it  from  mere 
love  of  fishing. 

The  term  play  covers  a  group  of  activities  as 


EXTENT  OF  THE  PLAY  INTEREST      7 

wide  as  the  scope  of  human  life.  It  goes  even 
further  than  human  life,  for  animals  also  play. 
Among  human  beings  play  is  part  of  the  activity 
of  babies,  children,  young  people,  and  adults. 
Play  has  always  been  of  interest  to  all  man- 
kind. 

Yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  conscious  in- 
terest in  play  is  new.  There  is  now  a  well-estab- 
lished play  movement  throughout  the  United 
States,  and,  indeed,  throughout  the  civilized 
world.  China,  India,  and  other  Eastern  coun- 
tries have  set  apart  play  centres.  One  of  the 
first  cities  in  the  United  States  to  establish  play- 
grounds was  Boston.  After  Boston  had  tried 
playgrounds  for  twenty-six  years,  the  Massa- 
chusetts legislature  passed  an  act  requiring  all 
municipalities  having  10,000  or  more  inhabitants 
to  vote  on  the  question  of  establishing  and  main- 
taining playgrounds  with  adequate  supervision. 

Chicago  has  probably  made  a  larger  single 
appropriation  for  recreation  than  any  one  city. 
In  a  little  more  than  two  years  Chicago  set  aside 
$10,000,000  for  small  parks  and  playgrounds, 
and  since  that  time  millions  have  been  spent  in 
developing,  administering,  and  enlarging  the 
system.  Their  recreation  centres  provide  in- 
door and  outdoor  gymnasiums  for  both  men 
and  women;  sand  gardens  and  wading  pools  for 


8  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

the  smaller  children;  ball  fields  for  the  boys  and 
men;  outdoor  swimming-pools,  restaurants,  li- 
braries, neighborhood  club-rooms,  and  an  audi- 
torium. All  this  is  paid  for  by  the  city,  not  by 
private  philanthropy.  And  the  use  of  these 
grounds  has  shown  their  need.  The  places  have 
become  neighborhood  centres  in  the  most  prom- 
ising sense.  It  is  said  that  aldermen  in  Chicago 
lose  all  popularity  with  their  constituents  un- 
less they  secure  playgrounds  in  their  wards. 

In  1907,  57  cities  reported  that  they  were 
conducting  playgrounds,  54  of  these  having  836 
grounds.  The  annual  cost  of  maintenance  for 
44  of  the  cities  reporting  was  $904,102.  In 
1918  reports  compiled  by  the  Playground  and 
Recreation  Association  of  America  showed  that 
504  cities  conducted  work  under  the  direction 
of  paid  leaders  at  an  expenditure  of  $6,659,- 
600.84.  In  addition  108  cities  reported  that 
their  schools  were  used  as  social  centres. 

A  movement  of  this  kind  demands  attention. 
Temptation  is  strong  to  continue  with  the  enu- 
meration of  special  instances  of  the  splendid 
growth  and  deepening  social  significance  of  the 
playground  movement  throughout  the  country; 
but  enough  has  been  said  to  dissipate  the  im- 
pression that  it  is  merely  a  local  or  transient 
fad.     It  is  an  awakening  on  the  part  of  our  citi- 


EXTENT  OF  THE  PLAY  INTEREST     9 

zens  to  an  hitherto  almost  unrecognized  respon- 
sibility. What  this  responsibility  is,  and  why 
it  exists,  and  what  there  is  in  our  modern  life 
which  has  awakened  us  to  it  are  questions  of 
vital  importance. 

In  the  succeeding  chapters  I  shall  take  up  a 
survey  of  some  of  the  universal  forms  of  chil- 
dren's plays,  the  hunting  and  fighting  plays,  the 
shelter  plays,  the  plays  of  ownership,  doll  play, 
playing  with  toys,  and  fire  play.  This  is  not 
an  exhaustive  list  of  the  plays  of  children,  but 
it  is  sufficiently  representative  to  show  the  forces 
present  in  play.  Certain  important  forms  of 
play  will  be  omitted  altogether  or  treated  briefly. 
Rhythmical  play  and  festivals  will  be  treated 
elsewhere,  and  for  that  reason  are  omitted  here. 
Team  plays  will  be  discussed  only  so  far  as  is 
necessary  for  the  understanding  of  other  topics. 
The  consideration  of  the  playground  movement 
must  be  omitted,  as  it  is  a  subject  which  might 
easily  require  a  book  by  itself.  Only  those 
phases  of  it  will  be  considered  here  which  relate 
directly  to  the  theory  of  play,  such  as  the  prob- 
lem of  play  direction. 

In  the  treatment  of  the  various  forms  of  play 
I  shall  discuss  the  survival  value,  from  the  evo- 
lutionary standpoint,  of  the  feelings  involved  in 
play,  and  the  extent  to  which  those  feelings  are 


10  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

still  of  use.  I  shall  then  take  up  a  brief  con- 
sideration of  the  play  of  animals,  the  play  of 
adults,  and  the  play  of  subnormal  children, 
tracing  in  each  case  the  relation  which  play 
bears  to  the  life  of  the  individual.  The  rela- 
tions of  various  plays  to  one  another  and  to  the 
physical,  mental,  and  moral  life  of  the  individ- 
ual will  be  discussed  with  special  reference  to 
pedagogical  implications  to  be  derived  from  a 
study  of  spontaneous  plays  of  children.  The 
part  taken  by  instinct  and  by  tradition  in  play, 
and  the  effect  which  play  has  in  preserving  the 
social  inheritance  of  the  race,  will  also  be  con- 
sidered in  this  connection. 

The  final  problems  discussed  relate  to  the 
position  of  play  in  modern  life.  The  conditions 
of  our  civilization  are  changing;  modern  indus- 
try has  affected  the  home,  the  school,  the  city. 
The  problem  of  play  is  in  many  ways  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  Play 
has  its  relations  to  the  modern  city,  industry, 
school,  to  the  modern  home.  It  has  also  close 
relations  to  the  ideal  which  is  being  tested  to- 
day in  America,  the  ideal  of  democracy.  All 
these  questions  must  be  considered  in  a  theory 
of  play. 

There  is  still  one  other  aspect  of  the  subject 
— the  relation  which  the  spirit  of  play  may  bear 


EXTENT  OF  THE  PLAY  INTEREST    11 

to  all  life.  Play  is  more  than  a  name  applied 
to  a  given  list  of  activities;  it  is  an  attitude 
which  may  pervade  every  activity.  Play  has 
sometimes  been  used  in  this  sense  in  connection 
with  artistic  achievement  in  discussions  of 
aesthetic  theories;  and  it  may  also  be  used  in 
connection  with  all  work  worth  doing.  Play  as 
free  expression  of  the  self,  as  the  pursuit  of  the 
ideal,  has  direct  bearing  on  the  ultimate  ques- 
tions of  reality  and  worth.  The  spirit  of  play 
has  value  as  a  philosophy  of  life. 


CHAPTER    II 

SEPARATION  VS.  CONCENTRATION 

IN  order  that  children  over  six  or  seven  years 
old  may  play  wholesomely,  good  leadership 
is  practically  essential.  Such  leadership  is 
of  even  greater  importance  than  the  playground 
itself  or  the  play  apparatus.  A  competent 
leader  may  secure  good  results  with  an  exceed- 
ingly meagre  outfit  of  play  materials  and  with 
very  limited  play  space;  whereas  playgrounds 
and  such  play  materials  as  swings,  chutes,  bats, 
and  balls,  used  without  wise  leadership,  are  fre- 
quently productive  of  evil  rather  than  of  good. 
Directed  play  is  the  first  requirement  for  chil- 
dren of  the  "game"  age. 

The  playground  is  a  device  by  which  a  single 
leader  can  effectively  control  the  play  of  a  large 
number  of  children.  It  is  an  aggregating  plan, 
and  actual  experience  has  shown  that  children 
playing  in  large  groups  must  have  competent 
persons  to  lead  and  supervise  them,  otherwise  the 
larger  and  more  disorderly  boys  in  the  neighbor- 
hood make  the  playground  intolerable  by  day 
and,  in  some  cases,  a  positive  menace  by  night. 

12 


SEPARATION  VS.   CONCENTRATION    13 

Babies  and  little  children  under  six  years  of 
age,  however,  present  an  entirely  different  prob- 
lem. It  is  undesirable  to  have  very  small  chil- 
dren gathered  together  in  large  numbers,  and  it 
is  unnecessary  that  their  play  should  be  directed. 
Their  first  need  is  suitable  space  and  things  to 
play  with.  A  sand  pile  in  which  they  may  dig, 
little  swings  which  they  can  use  themselves, 
small  seesaws,  blocks,  or  boards  to  build  with — 
all  these  are  ways  in  which  small  children  can 
play  even  though  they  have  no  guidance. 

We  have  thus  to  deal  with  two  exactly  oppo- 
site needs.  We  need  the  playground  with  its 
play  leader  and  apparatus,  to  concentrate  the 
play  of  the  older  children  of  the  neighborhood; 
and  we  need  play  facilities  at  frequent  intervals, 
over  a  large  area,  for  the  babies  and  little  chil- 
dren, so  that  they  may  be  separated  into  small 
groups  and  may  play  without  other  leadership 
than  that  of  the  older  children  or  adults  who 
may  accompany  them. 

In  America  we  have  not  as  yet  clearly  differ- 
entiated between  these  two  needs.  Not  one  of 
our  parks  is  so  equipped  as  to  afford  this  special 
opportunity  for  the  play  of  small  children,  and 
no  play  equipment  is  provided  near  the  homes. 

The  latter  need  is  well  illustrated  on  River- 
side Drive  in  New  York  City,  where  an  open 


14  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

parking  approximately  one  mile  long  and  thirty 
feet  wide  affords  play  space  for  thousands  of  lit- 
tle children  every  day.  It  would  be  unwise  to 
have  these  very  small  children  brought  together 
in  a  playground.  A  wise  provision  would  be  to 
place  a  sand  pile  every  hundred  yards  or  so,  each 
of  which  would  attract  a  small  number  of  babies. 
The  idea  is  to  have  a  large  number  of  small 
groups,  in  contrast  to  the  playground  idea,  which 
is  to  have  a  small  number  of  large  groups. 

In  Berlin  this  plan  has  already  been  carried 
out.  Down  the  middle  of  some  of  the  broader 
avenues  there  are  walks  and  trees;  and  here, 
every  few  days,  loads  of  clean  sand  are  placed 
short  distances  apart.  In  each  sand  pile  a  few 
children  can  be  found  playing  happily  under  the 
supervision  of  their  mothers,  nurses,  or  older 
brothers  and  sisters.  These  sand  piles  need  not 
be  unsightly,  nor  do  they  need  to  destroy  the 
beauty  of  the  boulevard.  Small  circular  basins, 
having  brick  floors  and  a  rounded  concrete  cop- 
ing, could  be  embedded  in  the  turf,  making 
attractive  centres  for  the  little  groups. 

In  the  ordinary  playground  it  has  been  found 
necessary  to  reserve  a  certain  part  of  the  ground 
exclusively  for  the  little  children,  placing  them 
in  charge  of  a  kindergartner  or  some  person 
with  similar  training.     Would  it  not  be  wise, 


SEPARATION  VS.   CONCENTRATION    15 

wherever  possible,  to  have  these  small  equip- 
ments distributed  throughout  a  city,  close  to  the 
homes  of  the  small  children,  rather  than  to 
attempt  to  bring  the  babies  together  in  large 
numbers  on  the  playgrounds  ? 


CHAPTER    III 

HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS 

ONE  of  the  vivid  impressions  of  my  early 
fatherhood  was  seeing  one  of  my  own 
children,  aged  four,  chasing  another, 
aged  six.  The  older  child  was  running  for  the 
piazza  of  the  house,  and,  before  reaching  it,  I 
saw  her  and  was  arrested  by  the  expression  of 
fear  on  her  face.  The  pupils  of  her  eyes  were 
dilated,  her  nostrils  were  playing  as  they  do  in 
extreme  fear,  her  face  wTas  white  and  her  breath 
drawn.  They  were  playing  bear,  and  the  smaller 
girl  was  the  bear.  There  was  no  danger  that 
the  "bear"  would  catch  her;  she  could  run  faster 
than  her  sister.  She  had  never  been  told  bear 
stories  which  might  have  accounted  for  her 
fright.  Yet  this  fear  had  come  from  somewhere 
and  laid  hold  of  her.  I  stopped  her  and  counted 
her  heart;  it  was  beating  130.  This  illustrates 
a  set  of  feelings  all  children  have,  though  not 
often  so  intensely. 

Almost  every  one  has  recollections  of  this 
kind.  There  is  my  own  remembrance  of  play- 
ing "black  man'    when  I  was  eight.     The  two 

16 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS    17 

sides  of  the  street  serve  as  goals  in  this  game, 
and  one  person  in  the  middle  is  "it."  The  ob- 
ject of  the  game  is  to  run  from  one  side  to  the 
other  without  being  tagged.  I  remember  run- 
ning until  it  seemed  to  me  I  could  not  stand  up; 
I  could  not  possibly  have  run  faster.  It  was 
all  for  fear  that  if  I  were  caught  I  would  be  "it." 
And  what  then  would  have  happened?  Noth- 
ing; I  would  simply  be  "it."  The  fear  of  this 
amounted  to  panic.  I  also  remember  running 
for  "home"  in  hide-and-seek,  just  at  dusk,  when 
it  seemed  as  though  something  might  jump 
from  behind  a  bush  or  tree,  tearing  for  "home" 
with  my  pursuer  keeping  an  unchanging  distance 
behind  and  my  heart  racing  because  of  the  fear. 
I  have  crouched  behind  door  or  bush,  waiting 
for  the  one  who  was  "seeking'  me,  with  my 
heart  thumping  so  I  thought  he  would  surely 
hear.  All  this  is  true  of  many  children  in  play- 
ing hide-and-seek.  Even  when  they  are  quite 
still,  the  heart  will  run  up  to  over  100.  Nothing 
is  going  to  happen,  but  this  old,  old  fear,  the 
fear  of  being  caught,  has  possession  of  them. 

And  when  a  child  is  "it,"  and  does  not  know 
whether  he  can  catch  the  other  person  or  reach 
the  goal  first,  he  will  run  until  the  world  swims 
in  front  of  him.  He  must  catch  the  other;  it  is 
necessary,  he  will  stop  at  nothing,  taking  dan- 


18  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

gerous  chances.  It  is  a  perfectly  unreasonable 
feeling.  There  is  no  cause  for  fear,  no  reason 
for  the  heart  to  run  up  to  100  or  130  when  he 
is  behind  a  bush  and  the  pursuing  person  passes 
by.  There  is  nothing  in  what  the  child  is  do- 
ing which  bears  any  relation  to  any  experience 
in  his  past  life,  nor  in  his  father's,  his  grand- 
father's, as  far  as  he  can  know.  Yet  this  feeling 
of  terror  in  being  caught  is  common  to  all 
mankind. 

When  my  boy  was  less  than  two  years  old  I 
would  start  toward  him  as  if  I  were  going  to 
catch  him.  I  had  never  been  rough  with  him, 
but  he  would  scream  and  run  across  the  room 
and  hide  his  face.  Then  when  I  sat  down  he 
would  want  me  to  do  it  again.  There  was  no 
reason  for  him  to  scream  and  run  away  so  des- 
perately; he  knew  I  was  not  going  to  hurt  him. 
He  had  seen  no  one  else  run  away;  he  was  not 
mimicking.  He  had  had  no  experience  either 
with  me  or  with  any  one  else  to  cause  that  feel- 
ing. Yet  whenever  I  started  toward  him,  away 
he  would  go.  He  was  in  the  power  of  this  same 
instinct  feeling. 

My  wife  told  me  when  she  was  nine  years  old 
she  was  playing  tag  with  some  children  in  the 
school  yard.  A  boy  chased  her;  she  raced  around 
the  yard,  up  the  stairs,  into  the  classroom,  and 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS     19 

hid  under  the  teacher's  desk.  She  must  not  be 
caught;  it  would  never  do  to  get  caught.  She 
had  that  same  feeling. 

Records  of  plays  based  on  the  fear  of  being 
caught  and  the  exaltation  in  catching,  secured 
from  many  parts  of  the  world,  show  that  they 
are  found  everywhere.  The  Chinese  feelings  are 
like  ours,  the  Hawaiian  feelings  are  like  ours, 
expressed  in  the  same  w^ay.  We  are  quite  safe, 
with  the  evidence  we  have,  in  saying  that  this 
is  a  world-wide  experience  which  grips,  not  every 
individual,  but  certainly  nine  out  of  ten  of  all 
who  play  tag  during  childhood.  They  have  all 
been  seized  by  the  feeling  of  exaltation,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  sense  of  fear  on  the  other. 
These  two  desires — to  catch  and  to  escape  being 
caught — are  sufficiently  strong  to  call  forth 
every  bit  of  human  power  in  running  and  skill  in 
dodging.  These  motives  are  dominant  through- 
out life,  merely  attaching  themselves  to  other 
activities — the  escaping  of  penalty,  the  pursu- 
ing of  the  thing  desired,  the  exaltation  in  its 
attainment.  The  feelings  themselves  arise  and 
come  to  power  in  most  of  us  through  playing 
some  form  of  tag.  Ultimately  they  can  be 
turned  into  other  paths,  and  used  in  other  ways, 
but  the  tag  play  affords  one  of  the  earliest  and 
most  common  ways  for  their  development. 


20  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

These  early  hunting  feelings  are  not  merely 
mimic  feelings,  imitating  real  desires  of  a  later 
age;  they  are  themselves  real.  The  little  girl 
who  ran  away  from  the  bear  was  not  imagining 
a  fear;  she  was  in  a  panic  which  had  physiologi- 
cal effects.  An  imitation  fear  could  not  dilate 
the  pupils  and  cause  the  heart  to  beat  as  hers 
did.  The  desire  to  catch,  to  hunt,  is  a  desire 
which  has  very  real  results  in  action.  A  group 
of  boys  of  about  fourteen  years  of  age  in  passing 
through  the  woods  saw  a  little  snake.  There 
was  no  reason  for  killing  that  snake,  and  the 
boys  were  not  inherently  cruel,  yet,  by  this  al- 
most universal  feeling,  the  snake  was  promptly 
despatched.  If  the  masculine  individual  is 
turned  loose  where  there  is  anything  to  kill,  he 
wants  to  kill  it.  Not  only  boys,  but  men,  good 
men,  educated  men,  do  that  and  enjoy  it.  When 
such  men  as  President  Roosevelt  want  to  rest 
they  go  out, into  the  woods  and  hunt,  satisfying 
their  consciences  by  collecting,  or  other  excuses. 

I  have  recorded  for  a  year,  as  far  as  I  could, 
through  Spalding's  and  other  firms  that  sell 
sporting  goods,  the  amount  of  money  spent  on 
game  preserves.  In  one  year  we  spent  over 
$10,000,000  to  hunt  and  kill  things  which  we 
did  not  need  to  eat.  In  that  same  year  there 
were  48  men  killed  in  the  Maine  woods  alone. 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS    21 

I  knew  of  a  man  who  killed  287  ducks  in  one 
day.  On  a  cold,  early  winter  morning  he  sat 
still  for  hours,  in  an  uncomfortable  position, 
getting  things  for  which  he  had  no  need.  From 
a  calm,  intellectual  view -point  it  was  a  very  stu- 
pid performance.  But  there  was  this  old  in- 
stinctive basis  of  desire  which  justified  the  man 
in  his  own  sight. 

Closely  connected  with  the  hunting  interest 
is  the  interest  in  a  fight.  I  met  a  Columbia 
professor  who  has  charge  of  one  of  the  branches 
of  aesthetics,  and  is  a  mild,  gentle  man,  courte- 
ous and  of  a  fine  nature.  He  was  much  elated 
over  having  seen  two  longshoremen  fighting  on 
South  Street,  which  borders  on  the  East  River. 
He  said  there  was  a  large  crowd  and  that  the 
men  were  evenly  matched.  I  asked:  "What 
did  you  do?  Call  a  policeman ?'  "No,"  he 
answered,  then  added:  'It  was  a  perfectly  fair 
fight,  nothing  wrong  about  it.,!  He  had  not 
seen  anything  for  months  that  pleased  him 
more.  He  explained  that  all  modern  life  is  so 
indirect;  we  smile  and  are  polite;  we  do  nothing 
straight  out.  His  feeling  was  the  old  masculine 
interest  in  a  fight  asserting  itself. 

All  over  the  world,  in  all  stages  of  civilization, 
very  large  proportions  of  men  have  been  inter- 
ested in  all  kinds  of  fighting.     In  China  they 


22  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

have  trained  crickets  and  men  come  together  to 
make  their  crickets  fight.  Wherever  there  are 
cocks  there  are  game  fights,  with  men  watching 
and  wagering  about  the  results.  In  Spain  there 
is  the  public  bull-fight.  In  all  Anglo-Saxon 
countries  there  is  boxing,  which  still  continues 
in  spite  of  legislation.  Frequently  those  agen- 
cies which  handle  the  world's  news  give  more 
space  to  a  discussion  whether  one  man  of  a  cer- 
tain weight  will  succeed  in  knocking  out  another 
man  in  a  given  number  of  rounds,  than  they 
give  to  an  election.  This  is  a  mo,st  peculiar 
phenomenon,  if  one  forgets  the  history  of  man- 
kind, and  simply  looks  at  the  immediate  present 
interest,  aside  from  any  utility,  which  man  has 
in  fighting. 

The  two  great  topics  of  literature  are  love  and 
fighting.  Practically  all  the  fiction  in  the  world 
is  built  upon  a  combination  of  these  two  inter- 
ests. If  we  took  love  out  of  all  the  stories,  we 
should  still  have  a  choice  collection;  if  we  took 
fighting  out,  there  would  still  remain  a  large 
number  of  books;  but  if  we  took  out  both  love 
and  fighting,  the  world's  poetry,  romance,  art, 
and  literature  would  be  gone,  for  these  two  are 
the  basic  human  emotions,  and  our  understand- 
ing of  the  world's  history  would  be  gone.  Hence 
when  boys  in  their  teens  read  dime  novels  they 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS    23 

are  doing  what  the  rest  of  the  world  has  always 
done.  When  they  read  books  which  convey 
impressions  false  to  life,  in  which  the  fighting 
instinct  is  perverted,  it  is  bad  for  them.  But 
fighting  of  some  kind  is  part  of  character;  it  is 
no  superficial,  modern  thing. 

Under  modern  conditions  there  is  no  real  use 
for  the  kind  of  fighting  which  most  of  us  still 
persist  in  having.  Yet  it  still  fascinates  us. 
The  interest  shown  in  the  naval  battles  and  the 
war  between  Russia  and  Japan  was  not  purely 
an  interest  in  the  triumph  of  righteousness;  it 
was  a  great  fight.  Victory  for  the  Japanese  ad- 
vanced them  further  in  the  world's  estimation 
and  respect  than  centuries  of  commercial  or  in- 
dustrial success  would  have  done.  The  combat 
against  tuberculosis  is  a  far  more  deadly  fight 
than  any  war  in  the  world,  more  full  of  danger 
and  suffering  to  the  families  of  our  nation. 
But  it  is  not  dramatic.  Hence  more  money  and 
time  and  interest  are  given  in  connection  with 
any  great  pugilistic  fight  than  for  so  non-exciting 
a  thing  as  the  combat  against  tuberculosis. 

A  desire  to  throw  hard  and  straight  is  part 
of  the  fighting  interest.  Doctor  Raycroft,  of 
the  University  of  Chicago,  gives  this  account  of 
his  feelings  in  playing  golf.  Sometimes  he 
made  two  or  three  good  drives,  hitting  the  ball 


24  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

far  and  hard.  After  that  he  had  a  satisfied  feel- 
ing for  many  days,  a  kind  of  satisfaction  his 
work  never  gave.  He  used  to  play  on  a  base- 
ball team;  he  says  that  a  hard  throw  which 
went  straight  and  accomplished  its  aim  gave  a 
kind  of  pleasure  that  was  organic.  Other  men 
feel  this  same  interest  in  throwing.  I  was  walk- 
ing one  day  on  a  beach  with  four  or  five  com- 
panions, all  of  them  doctors  of  medicine,  philos- 
ophy, or  law.  We  were  discussing  some  ques- 
tion concerning  Hegel's  philosophy,  when  I  saw 
an  empty  bottle  on  the  beach.  I  remarked  to 
myself:  "I  will  try  the  relative  attractiveness  of 
Hegel's  philosophy  and  this  desire  to  throw." 
I  took  the  bottle,  tossed  it  about  twenty  paces 
into  the  water,  and  picked  up  stones  to  throw 
at  it.  Every  man  followed  my  example;  every 
man  wanted  to  break  that  bottle.  These  men 
were  not  unique;  men  and  boys  who  play  ball 
belong  to  all  peoples. 

Facts  of  this  kind  seem  to  point  to  one  con- 
clusion. Mere  fondness  for  exercise  does  not 
account  for  this  interest.  I  once  tried  to  pro- 
duce games  constructed  purely  with  reference 
to  using  many  different  neuro-muscular  com- 
binations. I  thought  I  could  combine  gymnas- 
tics with  athletics  and  get  the  best  results 
through  the  use  of  many  movements,  not  merely 


HUNTING  AND   FIGHTING  PLAYS    25 

running,  throwing,  and  striking.  But  the  chil- 
dren, when  they  were  by  themselves,  would  not 
play  the  games.  There  was  no  "go'  in  them. 
Gradually  it  became  clear  to  me  that  the  in- 
stincts back  of  this  particular  group  of  activities 
are  so  definite  that  it  is  impossible  even  to  regu- 
late the  neuro-muscular  co-ordinations  involved. 
They  are  tremendously  old  instincts,  older  than 
civilized  history,  older  than  savage  history. 

A  great  many  years  ago,  probably  in  the 
early  part  of  the  Pleistocene  age,  before  there 
were  anv  records  such  as  we  have  now  of  man 
as  man,  before  he  had  invented  or  obtained  fire 
or  learned  its  use,  before  he  had  developed 
weapons,  before  he  had  learned  to  build  houses 
and  structures,  when  he  still  lived  in  caves  or 
in  rude  platforms  in  trees,  there  existed  with 
him  the  great  animals  of  the  world,  which  have 
since  been  killed  or  subdued.  The  sabre-toothed 
tiger,  the  great  sloth  were  still  alive,  and  some 
of  the  great  lizards.  Here  was  man;  he  had  no 
jaws  that  could  bite  as  animals  bite;  he  had  no 
talons  that  could  hold  and  kill  as  could  the 
talons  of  the  great  fighting  animals;  he  had  no 
claws  like  the  members  of  the  cat  family;  he 
had  no  thick  skin  like  the  rhinoceros,  or  the 
shell  of  the  turtle;  he  had  no  speed,  such  as  had 
the  deer  or  the  dog  or  the  horse.     In  all  these 


26  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

respects  he  was  suited  only  to  be  food  for  the 
great  flesh-eating  animals. 

During  this  time  running  was  of  importance 
to  man.  He  who  could  run  the  fastest  and  long- 
est was  the  best-equipped  for  getting  food  and 
also  for  escaping  in  moments  of  danger.  So 
there  was  a  constant  elimination  of  the  non- 
runners  and  a  constant  survival  of  the  runners. 
The  boys  who  liked  to  run,  who  had  instinctive 
desires  for  running,  survived  and  grew  into 
men.  It  followed  that  there  was  a  develop- 
ment in  boyhood  of  this  desire  to  run,  this 
interest  in  hiding  and  dodging,  out  of  which 
gradually  grew  these  tag  games,  which  antedate 
written  history.  They  antedate  even  the  rude 
records  written  on  the  walls  of  the  cave-dwellers. 
They  go  back  to  animal  time,  these  games  of 
tag,  and  are  merely  the  elaboration  of  the 
hunted  and  hunting  feelings  which  all  the  sur- 
vivors possessed. 

Presently,  as  man  developed,  he  found  that 
to  take  the  limb  of  a  tree  and  strip  it  of  its 
branches  gave  him  a  power  the  animals  did  not 
have.  He  could  stand  behind  cover  and  strike. 
The  use  of  the  club  lengthened  his  arm  and  gave 
weight  and  power.  The  man  who  learned  to 
handle  this  tree  limb  quickly,  with  strength  and 
skill,  was  far  better  able  to  survive  and  get  food 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS    27 

for  his  family  than  the  man  who  failed  to  de- 
velop this  ability.  A  third  impulse  developed 
with  these  two — the  desire  to  throw.  There  is 
something  still  more  effective  than  the  ability 
to  use  a  club.  A  stone,  half  the  size  of  the  fist, 
can  be  thrown  for  fifty  yards  with  sufficient 
accuracy  and  power  to  break  the  leg  of  a  deer, 
and  cripple  or  kill  a  smaller  animal.  It  was  an 
effective  weapon  in  defending  the  home.  So 
this  ability  to  throw  hard  and  straight  became 
one  of  the  great  things  in  the  world  of  boys; 
those  who  liked  it  best  and  practised  it  most 
became  the  men  who  survived.  The  stone  was 
the  first  weapon  that  could  strike  from  a  dis- 
tance; it  thus  served  to  eliminate  differences  in 
size  and  strength.  No  animal  had  a  weapon  of 
this  kind.  Certain  fish  can  project  a  drop  of 
water  and  catch  a  fly,  and  there  are  certain 
apes  that  throw  cocoanuts  from  a  height;  but 
to  stand  on  a  level  and  throw  straight  and  hard 
is  distinctively  human.  This  ability  to  throw, 
this  love  of  throwing,  is  one  of  the  things  that 
through  thousands  of  years  has  grown  deep 
down  into  our  natures,  and  is  still  of  fundamen- 
tal interest. 

From  the  use  of  the  club  and  the  throwing  of 
stones  man  has  developed  the  fighting  and  de- 
fensive implements.     He  made  the  boomerang, 


28  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

which  is  a  flat  club  curved;  the  spear,  a  straight 
club  with  a  sharp  end;  the  arrow,  a  little  spear 
to  throw  from  the  end  of  a  string.  From  the 
bow  and  arrow  developed  the  crossbow,  of 
which  the  modern  rifle  is  the  descendant.  The 
great  Roman  catapult  for  throwing  heavy 
weights  came  from  the  same  sources.  Man  was 
then  more  able  to  compete  with  the  early  ani- 
mals, but  the  love  of  running  and  throwing  and 
striking  still  survived,  for  these  were  still  the 
fundamental  co-ordinations  underlying  his  new 
weapons.  So  the  children  of  the  men  who  liked 
to  do  these  things  had  an  especially  good  chance 
of  growing  up,  and  they  in  turn  liked  to  play 
games  that  involved  running,  throwing,  and 
striking.  Those  are  the  athletics  of  the  world 
to-day.  This,  I  believe,  is  the  natural  history 
of  athletic  sports. 

Examining  all  the  tag  games  we  find  running 
and  dodging;  in  baseball,  running  and  striking; 
lacrosse,  running,  dodging,  catching,  throwing 
with  an  implement;  polo,  running  on  horseback, 
striking;  basket-ball,  running,  throwing,  catch- 
ing. They  are  all  built  with  an  emphasis  on 
one  or  the  other  of  these  three  activities.  Bil- 
liards are  different;  solitaire  is  different;  but  the 
great  athletic  games  are  based  on  the  funda- 
mental activities  that  have  been  cited. 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS    29 

Fighting  plays  may  be  divided  into  two  groups 
— direct  and  indirect  fighting  plays.  Direct 
fighting  plays  accomplish  defeat  by  giving  in- 
jury.    Included  in  these  plays  are: 

Boxing  Fencing 

Wrestling  Football. 

In  boxing  defeat  consists  in  being  unable  to 
go  on;  in  wrestling,  victory  belongs  to  him  who 
can  put  his  adversary's  hips  and  shoulders  on 
the  mat.  In  the  indirect  fighting  plays  victory 
inheres  in  more  objective  and  external  results, 
consisting  perhaps  of  a  score,  or  a  number  of 
points.  All  games  of  competition  may  be  classed 
as  indirect  fighting  plays,  when  the  degree  of 
competition  is  sufficiently  strong  so  as  to  pre- 
dominate over  other  elements  in  the  play.  The 
despair  and  emulation  in  a  competitive  game 
correspond  to  the  same  emotions  in  a  fight. 

This  raises  the  question  of  the  extent  to  which 
we  should  encourage  fighting  games.  The  fact 
that  these  activities  were  once  useful  does  not 
in  itself  prove  that  they  are  so  still.  Man  no 
longer  relies  for  his  life's  safety  on  the  ability 
to  throw  hard  and  straight.  He  has  conquered 
the  great  animals  of  the  world,  and  his  future 
career  does  not  depend  on  the  extermination  of 
the  few  remaining  large,  dangerous  beasts.  The 
present  significance  of  athletic  sports,  however, 


30  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

does  not  lie  in  their  relation  to  muscular  strength 
and  skill.  It  lies  in  their  relation  to  moral  qual- 
ities. Courage  was  developed  in  man  through 
the  necessity  of  facing  difficult  and  danger- 
ous situations,  through  fighting,  and  fighting 
desperately,  when  the  odds  were  against  him. 
The  means  used  were  running,  throwing,  and 
striking;  these  were  the  co-ordinations  which  be- 
came connected  with  courage.  The  disregard 
of  pain  came  into  being  through  standing  and 
fighting  regardless  of  suffering.  Those  agencies 
which  shaped  the  neuro-muscular  co-ordinations 
of  the  human  arm  no  less  truly  shaped  the  fun- 
damental qualities  of  manhood  which  we  regard 
as  necessary  to  moral  life — courage,  endurance, 
the  willingness  to  hang  on  and  finish  when  one 
is  sorely  punished.  All  the  active  and  positive 
virtues  are  related  to  these  old  activities. 

There  is,  of  course,  no  real  connection  be- 
tween muscular  movement  and  courage;  but 
when  man  has  had  to  use  his  courage  for  thou- 
sands of  years  in  ways  involving  certain  muscu- 
lar co-ordinations,  the  two  have  come  to  be  asso- 
ciated. When  we  desire  to  cultivate  courage  in 
a  boy  we  do  not  read  him  maxims  concerning 
the  beauty  of  courage.  We  put  him  in  sit- 
uations that  correspond  to  the  old  situations  in 
which  his  forebears  had  to  develop  courage  or 


HUNTING  AND  FIGHTING  PLAYS    31 

go  under.  These  situations  we  find  now  in  the 
form  of  play,  and,  in  this  form,  the  boy  can 
have  the  education  without  the  physical  danger. 

The  attitude  of  the  boy  who  can  play  a  vigor- 
ous, hard-fought  game  and  control  his  temper — 
who  can  run  on  and  finish  the  race,  no  matter 
how  tired,  no  matter  if  his  heart  is  pounding 
and  objects  are  growing  black  before  him — is 
significant,  not  from  the  standpoint  of  muscular 
development,  but  of  moral  development.  The 
natural  tendency  of  the  boy  is  to  win  these  vir- 
tues in  this  old  way;  these  are  the  means  by 
which  courage  and  power  came  to  man.  We 
need  not  expect  these  qualities  in  our  boys  un- 
less we  give  them  similar  opportunities,  or  op- 
portunities which  will  act  as  substitutes. 

Of  course  we  cannot  have  real  fights  in  large 
communities;  the  actual  situations  which  de- 
velop the  virtues  of  courage,  endurance,  scorn 
of  pain,  are  no  longer  possible.  It  seems  more 
necessary  now  than  ever  to  get  what  develop- 
ment can  be  secured  in  connection  with  plays 
involving  these  old  activities.  It  is  still  neces- 
sary for  man  to  be  courageous,  but  courageous 
in  a  different  way.  It  is  necessary  for  him  to 
be  a  fighter,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  killing. 
The  courage  that  keeps  a  man  straight  and 
clean  in  politics  is  a  far  more  difficult  form  of 


32  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

courage  than  that  called  forth  in  the  old  days. 
But,  in  the  main,  it  comes  in  the  same  way. 
There  is  no  way  of  creating  courage;  it  must  be 
developed.  All  that  we  can  do  is  to  create 
opportunity  for  its  exercise. 

When  boys  have  no  chance  to  play  games  of 
the  hunting  and  fighting  type,  they  have  little 
opportunity  to  develop  those  qualities  that 
make  fighters  of  men,  and  there  is  as  much  need 
of  fighters  as  there  ever  was.  If  temptations 
were  ever  strong  they  are  strong  in  our  mod- 
ern cities.  Safeguards  have  been  let  down  and 
modern  life  has  been  made  lax  to  an  extent 
that  it  has  never  been  before  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  as  regards  high  moral  and  physical 
standards.  We  are  protected  from  cold,  we 
have  food,  clothing,  and  shelter;  immediate 
physical  danger  and  suffering  have  been  prac- 
tically eliminated.  It  seems  as  if  the  effect  of 
modern  life  is  to  produce  ease,  mushiness,  soft- 
ness, and  when  grave  dangers  arise  there  has 
been  developed  no  strength  with  which  to  grap- 
ple them.  Hence  here  is  the  need  of  boxing,  of 
football,  of  games  that  teach  the  despising  of 
pain  and  danger,  for  these  qualities  are  related 
to  power  and  the  tissue  of  character.  If  ever 
there  was  need  of  a  stiff -backed  boy,  it  is  in  the 
modern  city. 


CHAPTER    IV 

PLAYING  HOUSE 

NEARLY  all  children  have  at  some  time 
or  other  played  house.  At  the  age  of 
four  I  was  given  an  umbrella,  which  I 
set  up  on  my  bed.  I  found  a  shawl  and  some 
pins  and  draped  the  shawl  over  the  umbrella  so 
as  to  make  a  little  house  to  sit  in.  I  said  to 
myself,  "This  is  my  house."  The  feeling  asso- 
ciated with  that  statement  can  never  be  ex- 
plained to  a  person  who  has  not  had  it.  I  had 
the  same  feeling — very  comfortable  and  deep — 
when,  after  being  married,  we  moved  into  two 
small  rooms  in  a  boarding-house  in  New  York; 
that  was  our  house. 

My  own  experience  as  a  boy  is  often  brought 
to  mind  when  on  travelling  through  the  woods 
I  see  the  little  shelters  that  boys  build,  a  tree 
house,  a  cave,  a  wigwam  of  green  stems  or  small 
trees.  These  habitations  are  often  made  by 
boys  who  have  good  homes,  who  are  not  in 
need  of  seeking  shelter;  these  dwellings  are 
made  for  no  reason  which  the  boys  themselves 
can  give.  Frequently  a  part  of  the  floor  is  dug 
up,  and  stores  of  chestnuts  are  collected  under- 

33 


34  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

neath.  In  none  of  the  playhouses  I  ever  had 
could  we  stand  up  straight.  There  was  a  little 
raised  platform  in  the  middle  on  which  we  made 
a  fire,  and  we  sat  in  very  uncomfortable  posi- 
tions. We  were  too  hot  in  front  and  too  cold 
in  the  back.  The  smoke  filled  our  eyes.  Mean- 
while we  were  eating  partly  baked  potatoes  or 
half-burned  chestnuts  or  doughnuts  taken  from 
mother's  pantry;  and  we  had  feelings  of  comfort, 
of  being  at  home,  such  as  we  never  experienced 
in  school  or  in  our  parents'  dwellings.  We  rec- 
ognize these  feelings  later  in  life  when  we  come 
to  establish  our  own  homes,  and  have  our  own 
kitchens  and  tables  and  hearth-fires.  These 
states  of  mind  are  not  dependent  on  reason; 
they  are  made  up  of  profound  instinct  feelings. 
The  feelings  which  centred  in  one  of  these 
shanties  were  sufficiently  strong  to  tie  a  group 
of  boys  together.  We  would  fight  with  a 
neighboring  group  and  steal  their  stores  if  we 
could.  We  were  protecting  our  own  home,  our 
own  people. 

These  feelings  are  common  to  most  children, 
and  are  experienced  by  girls  and  boys  alike, 
although  the  girl's  shelter  feelings  seem  to  differ 
somewhat  from  those  of  boys.  Many  of  my 
friends  have  furnished  incidents  from  their  own 
experiences. 


PLAYING  HOUSE  35 

"In  our  nursery  stood  an  old-fashioned  three- 
quarter  bed,"  says  one,  "with  sides  to  keep  the 
little  ones  from  falling  out.  The  four  legs  con- 
tinued up  into  posts  which  supported  a  mosquito 
bar.  This  bed  made  a  house  with  two  stories, 
one  under  the  bed,  the  other  within  the  railed 
enclosure  with  a  shawl  to  serve  as  a  protecting 
roof.  It  is  useless  to  try  to  describe  our  feel- 
ing of  protection  when  enclosed  in  this  comfort- 
able dwelling.  A  chair  served  as  steps  to  the 
upper  story,  and  one  child  lived  down-stairs 
while  the  others  occupied  the  floor  above.  We 
made  constant  visitations  up  and  down.'1 

A  corner  of  the  dining-room  screened  by  high 
clothes-bars  covered  with  shawls  served  as  the 
first  "house"  for  another  friend.  Still  another 
records  a  large  variety  of  houses.  A  great  oak- 
tree  formed  one  of  these.  Tents  made  of  bed- 
sheets  with  an  umbrella  for  centre-pole  were 
used  for  evening  and  morning  play.  "We  also 
made  houses  by  sweeping  up  sand  into  little 
walls  three  inches  high.  Higher  mounds  of 
sand  were  used  for  seats,  and  a  pile  of  bricks 
formed  the  stove.  These  houses  were  many- 
roomed,  and  it  was  forbidden  to  cross  over  the 
sand  walls,  except  at  certain  spots  where  we 
had  made  doors.  At  times,  however,  we  pre- 
ferred smaller  houses  which  we  could  occupy 


36  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

entirely  alone,  screened  even  from  the  sight  of 
passers-by." 

Small  indoor  houses  seem  to  belong  especially 
to  the  experience  of  younger  children,  and  the 
house  plays  increase  in  complexity  as  children 
grow  older. 

Another  friend  used  to  make  a  tent  out  of 
the  bedposts  and  sheets.  A  strong  sheet  was 
stretched  from  post  to  post  and  tied,  and  the 
sides  of  the  "house"  were  draped  with  bedding, 
to  keep  out  the  enemy — in  some  cases  imagi- 
nary, in  other  cases  the  smaller  sisters.  This 
form  of  house  play  continued  for  a  long  time, 
and  had  many  variations  and  additions.  At 
first  the  tent  was  used  as  a  home,  and  the  in- 
terior was  separated  into  rooms  by  rows  of 
pillows.  Sometimes  the  space  below  the  bed 
was  a  cellar  or  a  cave  filled  with  wild  animals. 
Later  the  children  made  use  of  a  heavy  down 
comforter  with  which  they  built  a  cave.  The 
party  then  divided  into  cave-dwellers  and  cliff- 
dwellers,  sometimes  visiting  each  other,  some- 
times waging  war  for  the  possession  of  each 
other's  dwellings. 

The  same  friend  who  writes  of  these  experi- 
ences moved  at  the  age  of  eleven  to  a  house 
surrounded  by  many  acres  of  land.  A  large 
apple-tree,    with    low-hanging    branches,    was 


PLAYING  HOUSE  37 

adapted  to  the  needs  of  a  playhouse.  Boards 
were  nailed  from  limb  to  limb,  and  the  house 
was  divided  into  many  rooms.  This  much  more 
complicated  arrangement  suited  the  demands  of 
older  children. 

Sometimes,  in  wanderings  from  the  home- 
tree,  the  children  played  at  being  lost  in  the 
orchard,  and  as  imaginary  night  came  on,  they 
found  it  necessary  to  hunt  a  suitable  place  for 
shelter  from  storm  and  wild  animals.  On  the 
top  of  a  hill,  behind  the  house,  was  a  group  of 
pines,  dark  and  cool,  and  "different'  from  the 
rest  of  the  orchard.  Under  these  pines  they 
always  made  a  temporary  shelter,  protected 
from  the  terrors  of  the  dark  by  a  packing-box 
and  a  fire.  Foraging  parties  went  out  for  food, 
cautiously  entering  the  cellar  and  stealing  pota- 
toes from  the  bin.  And  out  in  that  box,  on  a 
sweltering  day,  the  children  crouched  before  a 
hot  fire,  eating  smoky,  half-raw  potatoes  (they 
could  never  be  prevailed  upon  to  eat  potatoes 
at  the  table),  and  were  supremely  happy.  They 
had  been  lost,  but  had  made  a  shelter  for  them- 
selves.    They  felt  protected  and  at  home. 

Another  friend's  playhouse  experience  always 
took  the  form  of  a  wigwam,  usually  inhabited 
with  some  companion.  They  built  wigwams  of 
clothes  and  quilts,  and  later  of  willow  sticks  tied 


38  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

together.  These  formed  a  defense  which  other 
boys  tried  to  tear  down.  A  great  feeling  of 
mystery  was  always  connected  with  these  struc- 
tures. They  had  to  be  concealed.  In  a  copse 
twenty-five  or  thirty  feet  above  the  travelled 
road  the  boys  sat  with  a  shawl  and  plaited  the 
branches  together  to  make  the  place  more  hid- 
den. It  was  a  great  joy  to  make  a  horrible 
noise  to  terrify  the  countrymen  going  by,  but 
the  boys  felt  as  terrified  as  those  who  passed. 

Even  the  crowded  conditions  under  which 
city  children  live  have  not  deprived  them  of 
this  desire  to  find  a  place  of  their  own,  where 
they  can  feel  at  home,  protected,  sheltered. 
One  of  the  common  things  for  children  to  do  in 
a  city  back  yard  is  to  get  chunks  of  coal,  or 
blocks  of  wood,  or  even  a  nail,  and  mark  divi- 
sions in  the  earth.  One  sees  these  markings, 
also,  on  the  asphalt  pavement  of  the  sidewalks. 
"This  is  my  house.  This  is  your  house.,:  And 
it  feels  different  when  they  are  in  "my'  house 
from  what  it  does  when  they  are  in  'your' 
house.  As  far  as  I  observed,  the  feelings  of  the 
house  play  are  stronger  with  girls  than  with  boys. 

Boys  are  especially  interested  in  the  construc- 
tion of  houses.  A  gang  of  boys  in  a  district 
school  in  central  New  York  built  a  house  in  a 
fence  corner.     All  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood 


PLAYING  HOUSE  39 

were  invited  to  join  in  the  enterprise,  but  as 
soon  as  the  work  actually  began  the  group  be- 
came a  closed  corporation.  This  is  a  most  sig- 
nificant fact  in  its  bearing  on  the  connection  of 
the  shelter  feeling  to  group  life.  No  boy  who 
had  refused  to  assist  was  afterward  allowed  to 
come  into  the  house.  The  walls  were  built  of 
flat  stones,  piled  as  high  as  the  top  of  the  fence. 
Short  rails  served  as  rafters,  and  the  whole  was 
well  covered  with  brush.  One  of  the  boys  was 
chosen  leader;  his  word  thereafter  became  abso- 
lute law.  That  organization  was  the  beginning 
of  a  "gang.'5  The  boys  hurried  from  school  in 
the  afternoon  and  used  every  available  minute 
for  the  completion  of  the  house.  Then  cooking 
experiments  were  tried  over  a  fire  that  never 
cooked  anything,  but  burned  and  scorched  and 
blackened,  filling  the  house  with  smoke  that 
refused  to  go  up  the  hole  prepared  for  it. 

The  friend  who  tells  of  this  stone  house  adds: 
"My  feeling  of  intense  personal  ownership  was 
never  duplicated  until  about  four  years  ago, 
when  my  wife  and  I  purchased  a  house  and 
established  a  home  for  the  first  time.  Two 
years  ago  I  happened  to  pass  the  spot  where 
the  old  rail  fence  once  stood.  Not  a  trace  of 
the  playhouse  remained,  but  upon  gazing  at 
the  site  the  same  thrill  came  over  me  that  I 


40  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

used  to  feel  as  I  squeezed  through  the  narrow 
door  and  sat  on  those  torturous  seats,  with  a 
sharp  stone  or  a  jagged  rail  digging  a  hole  in 
my  back.  I  have  never  found  an  upholstered 
chair  that  could  compare  with  those  seats  for 
comfort,  and  that  could  give  in  equal  measure 
the  sense  of  being  at  home/' 

If  we  look  back  over  the  history  of  the  human 
race,  and  consider  what  shelter  has  meant  to  us 
and  how  civilization  would  have  been  impossi- 
ble without  this  development  of  the  interest  in 
the  "house,"  we  begin  to  see  the  survival  value 
which  these  feelings,  now  expressed  in  the  play 
of  children,  have  had  for  our  kind.  Those  indi- 
viduals who  had  the  inclination  to  remain  in 
one  place,  rather  than  to  wander,  had  a  great 
advantage  over  the  rest.  Remaining  in  one 
place  would  result  inevitably  in  greater  accu- 
mulation of  property,  and  out  of  property  much 
of  our  social  custom  and  law  have  grown.  The 
massing  together  of  pottery,  baskets,  religious 
properties,  cooking  utensils,  ornaments,  changes 
of  clothing,  with  all  that  this  accumulation 
means  for  the  advance  of  civilization,  is  greatly 
facilitated  by  remaining  in  one  place.  Those 
people  who  had  the  feeling  for  shelter  gradually 
obtained  these  advantages. 

The  establishment  of  the  home  in  one  place, 


PLAYING  HOUSE  41 

with  comparatively  little  wandering,  was  also 
favorable  to  the  growth  of  small  children.  In 
the  home  there  was  less  danger  from  exposure. 
There  was  less  danger  from  enemies,  since  accu- 
rate knowledge  of  the  immediate  physical  en- 
vironment was  a  great  help  in  any  combat. 
The  domestication  of  plants  and  animals  can  be 
carried  out  only  by  residence,  for  a  time  at  least, 
in  one  locality.  Such  domestication  means  in- 
creasing freedom  from  the  daily  pressure  for 
food.  It  means  an  opportunity  of  growth  for 
the  higher  mental  life;  it  means  increasing  sta- 
bility of  the  home  and  the  social  group. 

Of  course,  one  could  not  maintain  that  the 
early  races  adopted  shelter  because  they  per- 
ceived that  it  would  be  advantageous  and  that 
through  it  all  these  blessings  would  accrue  to 
them.  They  had  no  such  conscious  purpose. 
But  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  individuals 
and  groups  in  whom  the  feeling  for  locality 
and  shelter  was  most  strongly  developed  inevi- 
tably gained  these  benefits.  Their  children  had 
a  better  chance  of  survival.  So  the  shelter  feel- 
ing was  passed  on  and  strengthened  among  the 
civilized  peoples,  for  it  was  one  of  the  factors 
that  made  those  peoples. 

There  seems  to  be  a  difference  on  the  part  of 
various  races  with  regard  to  the  shelter  feeling. 


42  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

Out  of  the  lower  East  Side  in  New  York  40,000 
people  migrated  in  a  short  time  across  the  Wil- 
liamsburg Bridge  and  settled  in  what  is  known 
as  Brownsville.  There  was  plenty  of  room  in 
Brownsville.  There  were  many  vacant  lots. 
But  the  people  packed  together  as  tightly  in 
Brownsville  as  they  had  been  on  the  lower  East 
Side.  They  had  not  this  feeling  for  individual 
shelter. 

It  seems  that  in  the  Aryan  invasion  of  Europe 
the  people  in  the  different  waves  of  the  inva- 
sion possessed  different  feelings  with  reference 
to  the  home.  The  first  comers,  the  North- 
men, demanded  individual  shelter.  Every  man 
wanted  his  own  roof,  alone;  when  the  young 
people  married  they  set  up  a  separate  establish- 
ment. That  feeling  has  remained  until  the  pres- 
ent time,  and  those  of  us  who  are  of  Norman 
stock  object  much  more  strenuously  to  the  tene- 
ment house  and  the  apartment  than  do  people 
of  some  other  races. 

When  the  young  people  of  the  Southern  na- 
tions married  they  simply  put  on  an  addition 
to  the  old  dwelling,  which  became  larger  as  the 
family  grew.  The  people  went  to  their  farms 
during  the  day,  sometimes  at  great  distances 
and  in  many  directions,  but  they  all  returned  to 
the  central  place  at  ni-ght.     That  is,  their  feeling 


PLAYING  HOUSE  43 

for  family  unity  and  group  life  differed  from  that 
of  the  Northern  peoples.  Both  these  feelings, 
however,  are  based  on  the  feeling  for  shelter. 

The  present  conditions  of  city  life  are  affecting 
to  some  extent  this  desire  for  a  particular  local- 
ity and  a  particular  shelter.  All  the  movement 
of  the  times  is  away  from  continuous  living  in 
one  place.  From  the  kindergarten  up  things 
belong  in  common.  The  house  is  a  temporary 
home.  People  in  Boston  move  on  an  average 
once  a  year;  other  cities  are  probably  much  the 
same  in  this  respect.  We  are  very  far  removed 
from  the  feeling  for  locality  which  some  Hawaii 
Islanders  had  of  whom  I  have  heard.  They 
had  left  a  small  island  on  which  nothing  grew 
but  a  few  palm-trees.  They  had  come  away  in  a 
group,  so  that  the  element  of  the  loss  of  friends 
entered  into  the  situation  but  slightly.  But 
they  grew  so  desperately  homesick  that  some  of 
them  died.  They  wanted  their  place.  A  feel- 
ing of  this  kind  does  not  survive  in  the  modern 
city. 

Continuity  of  character  tends  to  grow  out  of 
attachment  to  a  place.  One  of  the  most  dan- 
gerous factors  in  city  life  is  this  ease  of  moving. 
A  person  may  leave  readily  the  scene  of  his 
actions  for  another  part  of  the  town,  and  the 
modern  makeshift  known  as  a  "bluff'    may  be 


44  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

developed  in  place  of  character.  The  sense  of 
responsibility  for  past  deeds  is  weakened  when 
a  man  no  longer  faces  their  consequences  in  the 
locality  where  they  were  committed.  Constant 
moving  tends  to  loss  of  the  feeling  for  home,  and 
all  that  this  feeling  implies  for  group  life  and 
mutual  responsibility. 

There  is  great  need  for  encouraging  this  feel- 
ing for  shelter  and  home  through  the  plays  of 
children.  It  may  also  be  encouraged  in  other 
ways.  My  own  children  went  back  every  sum- 
mer to  the  locality  where  we  had  lived  for  six- 
teen years.  They  knew  the  people  and  the 
people  knew  us.  The  children  knew  where 
crabs  were  to  be  found,  where  clams  abounded, 
and  where  they  could  fish  for  trout.  They  had 
associations  with  various  places.  There  was  the 
spot  where  one  of  them  fell,  there  the  place 
where  we  first  raised  the  flag.  That  means  con- 
tinuity. During  the  winter  they  lived  in  Spring- 
field, in  New  York,  in  Boston,  and  went  to  dif- 
ferent schools.  New  ties  were  constantly  made 
and  constantly  broken.  This  easy  change  makes 
for  superficiality  of  character,  unless  it  is  bal- 
anced by  some  sort  of  continuity.  One  of  the 
things  which  we  must  give  our  children  is  oppor- 
tunity to  develop  their  feelings  for  shelter  and 
home  by  attachment  to  some  locality,  and  by 


PLAYING  HOUSE  45 

the  various  activities  which  come  under  the 
head  of  "playing  house.' ' 

This  is  true,  also,  with  regard  to  the  other 
play  so  frequently  connected  with  playing  house 
— the  preparation  and  eating  of  food.  One  of 
the  interesting  things  that  small  children  do  is 
to  make  mud  pies.  Sometimes  mud  pies  have 
really  been  tasted,  in  an  attempt  to  carry  the 
play  to  an  extreme  conclusion.  When  the  chil- 
dren grow  older,  they  frequently  progress  to 
real  cookery  of  a  more  or  less  primitive  type, 
often  carried  on  in  connection  with  the  plays  of 
shelter.  Boys  are  as  much  interested  in  their 
way  in  the  mimic  preparation  of  food  as  girls 
are.  I  have  already  mentioned  the  doughnuts 
and  half-baked  potatoes  eaten  in  the  shanty 
which  I  had  with  some  other  boys  in  the  woods. 
We  also  used  to  kill  and  cook  English  sparrows. 
I  ate  those  meals  with  an  enthusiasm  which  I 
have  never  known  in  eating  anything  else  in  my 
life.  It  was  a  great  joy  to  make  little  loaves  of 
bread  and  cake,  and  to  have  stores  where  we 
sold  food.  In  connection  with  a  house  that  my 
children  built,  they  had  a  complete  set  of  cook- 
ing utensils.  There  was  nothing  cooked  on  the 
real  stove  in  the  real  house  that  was  not  also 
cooked  on  the  little  stove  in  the  playhouse. 

A  very  real  sense  of  increased  power  conies  to 


46  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

the  individual  who  is  efficient  in  these  activities 
of  the  home.  There  are  feelings  of  complacency, 
enlarged  personality,  independence.  There  is  a 
great  difference  between  our  feeling  toward  food 
that  we  have  prepared  ourselves  or  that  some 
one  at  home  has  prepared  for  us,  and  our  feel- 
ing toward  hotel  food. 

Two  great  factors  have  always  held  the  family 
together — shelter  and  food.  The  kitchen  has 
been  the  social  centre  of  the  family  during  all 
time.  Eating  and  the  preparation  of  food  have 
been  connected  with  the  development  of  social 
life.  The  kitchen  with  the  copper  pots  on  the 
wall  was  the  place  to  which  the  neighbors  would 
come,  and  the  fact  that  we  now  set  apart  a 
separate  room  for  the  reception  of  visitors  is 
socially  an  abnormal  procedure.  When  people 
know  each  other  well,  they  go  out  into  the 
kitchen  together. 

When  people  eat  together  they  have  expressed 
a  definite  social  relation.  They  feel  differently 
about  each  other.  Frequently,  if  a  man  wants 
to  ask  a  favor  of  another,  he  invites  him  to  din- 
ner; in  that  way  he  establishes  a  new  relation. 
This  set  of  feelings  is  one  against  which  many 
intellectual  people  rebel.  When  the  effort  is 
made  to  get  them  together  and  it  is  suggested 
that  they  have  something  to  eat,  they  say  that 


PLAYING  HOUSE  47 

you  want  to  put  something  into  their  stomachs. 
This  statement  is  not  wholly  true.  "Putting 
something  into  one's  stomach"  does  not  express 
it.  The  symbol  of  breaking  bread  and  eating 
salt  together  is  a  truer  one.  The  common  meal 
is  the  sign  of  fellowship.  The  cooking  of  food 
tends  to  bring  people  together.  It  is  a  basal 
element  in  the  evolution  of  the  social  life.  The 
meal  is  the  time  when  men  are  free  to  meet. 
Hence  the  social  activities  grow  up  naturally  at 
a  meal,  and  the  social  traditions  are  associated 
with  the  partaking  of  salt  and  the  breaking  of 
bread.  The  state  of  the  body  after  eating  is 
favorable  to  social  life.  There  is  quiet  and  rest 
rather  than  hostility.  A  fundamental  desire 
has  been  gratified.  Hence  the  establishment  of 
friendly  relations  is  easy. 

The  cooking  of  food  has  in  the  past  contrib- 
uted to  racial  advance  and  survival.  Cooking 
means  a  great  increase  in  the  quantity  of  the 
available  food-supply.  It  enables  men  to  dry 
and  preserve  meats.  It  provides  foods  which 
could  not  be  eaten  uncooked.  It  aids  the  diges- 
tion of  food.  For  all  these  reasons  it  tends 
toward  greater  vigor,  and  hence  toward  sur- 
vival. 

Therefore,  the  playing  with  food  seems  to  be 
another  of  the  important  preparations  for  life, 


48  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

because  it  gives  the  child  an  opportunity  to 
express  and  so  develop  the  instinctive  feelings  in 
connection  with  which  so  much  of  our  racial 
growth  has  come  about. 


CHAPTER   V 

FIRE  PLAY 

BEHIND  our  house  in  Springfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, was  a  sand  waste,  with  a  bank 
of  sand  four  feet  high.  The  face  of  the 
bank  had  been  dug  away  so  that  it  could  be 
burrowed  into.  Periodically  the  interests  of  our 
children  would  centre  about  this  bank;  it  was 
an  ideal  place  for  fire  play.  The  children  built 
their  fires  at  various  places  in  the  bank.  They 
would  burrow  a  hole  some  feet  from  the  top  of 
the  bank  and  make  an  upward  excavation  to 
serve  as  a  chimney.  Viewed  from  above,  the 
bank  presented  a  flat  surface  riddled  with  chim- 
ney holes. 

Playing  with  fire  is  a  little  dangerous,  and  yet 
children  cannot  come  to  know  fire  except  by 
playing  with  it  in  the  same  way  as  they  have 
learned  to  know  other  things  through  play. 
Hence,  while  fire  play  was  encouraged  in  our 
home,  it  was  restricted  to  one  day  a  week. 
Friday  was  always  fire  day,  when  the  children 
were  allowed   to  have  as   many  fires  as   they 

49 


50  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

wished,  and  fires  of  every  kind.  They  wore 
woollen  dresses  as  a  precaution,  and  some  older 
person  was  always  present.  In  the  main  the 
children  preferred  small  fires  with  which  they 
could  do  things  to  large  fires  which  were  merely 
spectacular.  If  a  fire  could  be  made  to  cook 
something  it  was  enjoyed  particularly. 

Ownership  in  these  little  fires  was  passionate 
and  intense.  One  of  my  girls  ran  to  me  once  in 
great  excitement,  saying:  "Father,  Louise  put  a 
stick  on  my  fire  and  I  didn't  say  she  could.,: 
That  fire  was  her  own;  it  was  tied  up  with  her 
self  as  much  as  any  other  possession  that  she 
had.  The  care  with  which  the  children  at- 
tended to  their  individual  fires,  the  selection  of 
suitable  material,  was  a  matter  of  all-absorbing 
interest.  There  was  great  anxiety  lest  the  fire 
should  go  out,  not  because  it  was  needed,  but 
simply  because  it  was  wanted.  It  could  be  lit 
again  from  another  fire,  but  that  was  not  satis- 
factory to  the  child;  one's  own  fire  must  be 
kept  going. 

The  feelings  that  children  have  toward  fire 
vary  with  the  size  of  the  fire.  There  are  feelings 
of  tenderness  for  a  small  fire,  of  sympathy  and 
anxiety  lest  it  should  die.  There  are  feelings  of 
fear  toward  a  big  blaze,  even  if  there  be  no  dan- 
ger from  it.     It  appears  that  girls'  feelings  dif- 


FIRE   PLAY  51 

fer  on  the  whole  from  boys',  the  girl  inclining 
toward  the  little,  domesticated  fire,  and  the 
boy  toward  the  large,  fierce,  dramatic  blaze. 
There  are  feelings  of  excitement  in  connection 
with  a  roaring  fire  and  of  revery  with  a  dying 
glow.  Of  all  these  feelings  I  have  numerous 
records,  and  probably  all  of  us  have  such  rec- 
ords, if  not  written,  then  recorded  in  brain  cells 
and  visual  images. 

These  feelings  about  fire  are  by  no  means 
confined  to  children.  In  our  home  we  had  a 
fair-sized  fireplace,  in  which  three-foot  logs 
could  be  placed.  The  room  in  which  the  fire- 
place was  located  held  from  thirty  to  forty  per- 
sons. I  have  repeatedly  tried  the  experiment 
of  having  the  logs  ready  to  light,  so  as  to  avoid 
all  preliminary  and  disturbing  work  which  might 
distract  the  attention,  and  then  when  the  room 
was  full  of  friends,  chattering  as  friends  always 
do,  lighting  the  fire.  An  open  fire  was  not  so 
uncommon  a  sight  as  to  awaken  any  feeling  of 
the  unusual,  for  we  had  it  practically  every 
day,  but  its  effect  was  almost  always  profound. 
With  the  lighting  of  the  fire  came  first  a  lower- 
ing of  the  conversational  tone,  then  a  lessening 
in  its  quantity,  and  frequently  a  full  stop.  I 
have  timed  many  pauses  of  over  thirty  seconds' 
duration,  and  one  of  forty-three  seconds.     On 


52  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

the  latter  occasion  over  twenty  persons  were 
present  in  the  room,  and  there  was  no  single 
psychological  cause  for  the  stopping  of  conver- 
sation. Psychologists  who  have  studied  the  be- 
havior of  groups  of  people  know  that  ordinarily 
no  cause  of  an  internal  character  is  likely  to 
arise  which  will  stop  the  talk  of  twenty  people 
simultaneously.  A  half-minute's  pause  in  a 
prayer-meeting  seems  interminable,  painful;  but 
before  the  fire  it  is  different;  one  feels  only  rev- 
erence and  awe. 

The  effect  of  fire  in  producing  a  sense  of  pro- 
tection is  even  to-day  experienced  frequently. 
Late  one  afternoon  two  boys  and  I  were  lost  in 
the  Adirondack  woods.  We  tramped  about 
until  night  came  on,  and  there  was  no  hope  of 
finding  our  way.  We  walked  in  total  darkness; 
there  was  no  difference  between  looking  up  and 
looking  down  in  the  woods.  We  smashed  into 
tree  trunks  and  could  not  distinguish  between 
the  trees  and  the  sky.  It  was  raining  hard,  our 
blankets  were  wet,  and  we  had  little  to  eat. 
We  found  a  brook  by  the  sound  of  its  rippling; 
near  it  we  discovered  a  dry,  hollow  oak  log, 
and  with  our  last  few  matches  we  made  a 
fire. 

The  state  of  feeling  before  we  built  that  fire 
had  been  one  of  unreasoning  despair.     We  were 


FIRE  PLAY  53 

not  in  a  dangerous  situation,  for  that  part  of 
the  country  is  thickly  settled.  There  was  no 
probability  of  our  starving  to  death.  But  the 
awfulness  of  being  lost,  of  being  out  of  touch  with 
human  beings,  not  knowing  where  we  were,  and 
our  friends  not  knowing  where  we  were — these 
feelings  were  so  intense  as  to  blind  the  reason, 
not  only  of  the  boys,  but  of  myself.  The  situa- 
tion seemed  desperate.  With  the  lighting  of  the 
fire  our  state  of  feeling  changed  to  one  of  com- 
fort and  satisfaction.  The  actual  conditions 
were  the  same  as  before.  We  were  as  much 
lost  as  we  had  been.  We  were  no  farther  from 
nor  any  nearer  to  other  people.  There  was  no 
special  danger  from  wmich  we  were  protected 
by  the  fire.  It  was  raining  so  hard  that  the 
fire  did  not  even  change  our  physical  comfort 
in  any  striking  manner.  But  our  whole  attitude 
toward  life  became  different.  The  place  of  the 
fire  acquired  the  significance  of  home.  We  sat 
up  most  of  the  night  feeding  the  flame,  and  when 
we  wrent  off  to  get  wood  and  returned  to  the 
fire  we  felt  that  we  were  no  longer  lost. 

Lying  down  by  a  large  fire  at  night  in  the 
woods  never  fails  to  produce  in  me  feelings  of 
safety  and  the  comfort  of  being  at  home.  A 
party  of  wThich  I  was  one  tramped  seven  weeks 
through  the  Yosemite  Valley.     The  camp  fire 


54  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

was  the  centre  about  which  we  would  gather. 
As  soon  as  it  was  lit  at  night,  we  had  a  feeling 
of  unity.  If  we  went  away  for  some  hours  to 
draw  water,  or  to  get  a  better  grazing  ground 
for  the  horses,  going  back  to  the  fire  was  "going 
home.'  That  was  the  phrase  we  used.  If  we 
returned  to  a  place  after  having  been  absent 
for  some  time,  we  invariably  had  the  fire  in 
the  same  spot  in  which  we  had  built  it  before. 
Some  years  ago  I  experimented  with  this  feeling 
by  deliberately  keeping  away  from  a  known 
camp  fire.  I  found  that  I  had  a  sense  of  un- 
easiness, of  wanting  to  get  there.  Going  into 
the  woods  and  having  for  company  only  the 
birds  and  the  plants  is  not  sufficient;  but  a 
fire  goes  a  long  way  to  supply  the  need  of  com- 
panionship. It  feels  as  if  it  were  alive;  it  gives 
the  sense  of  home. 

Ascending  smoke  produces  feelings  of  an 
aesthetic  nature  in  many  people.  A  striking 
fireplace  which  I  once  saw  in  California  made 
its  appeal  in  this  way.  The  fire  was  built  on 
the  stone  floor  against  a  wall,  flanked  by  two 
large  posts;  the  chimney  hole  in  the  ceiling  was 
placed  slightly  forward  for  the  sake  of  the 
draught.  The  fire  and  smoke  rose  in  an  un- 
broken column  against  the  wall  from  floor  to 
ceiling.     It  was  a  sight  which  one  could  watch 


FIRE  PLAY  55 

hour  after  hour,  spellbound  by  the  combined 
effect  of  smoke  and  flame. 

There  is  fascination  about  the  smoke  from  a 
large  fire  on  which  green  wood  or  green  pine- 
needles  have  been  piled.  When  there  is  no 
wind,  a  solid,  gray,  fluted  column,  perhaps  a  foot 
in  diameter,  goes  up  motionless  for  two  or  three 
feet,  and  than  breaks  into  rhythmical  waves. 
The  smoke  motion  has  something  almost  hyp- 
notic. There  is  a  similar  feeling  about  the  thin 
gray  line  of  smoke  ascending  from  incense,  and 
gradually  spreading  out  into  nothingness.  To  get 
the  best  effect,  sticks  of  Chinese  incense  must 
be  placed  in  a  room  in  which  every  door  and 
window  has  been  closed,  on  a  day  when  there  is 
little  wind.  The  columns  will  go  up  without  a 
break  for  a  long  way,  passing  finally  into  beau- 
tiful gray  whirls  and  rings. 

It  is  said  that  blind  people  do  not  care  to 
smoke.  Smoking  in  the  dark  is  exceedingly  un- 
satisfactory. If  one  is  not  really  attentive  to  a 
pipe,  it  will  go  out  unawares.  I  have  been  told 
by  a  friend  that  he  knows  of  few  things  more 
annoying  than  to  be  smoking  away  on  a  pipe 
and  suddenly  discovering  that  it  has  been  out 
for  some  time.  It  is  the  visual  sense  to  a  large 
degree  that  sets  up  these  smoke  reactions.  One 
of  the  charms  of  smoking  is  the  vision  of  gray 


56  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

whirls,  streams,  clouds,  rings  of  impalpable 
smoke,  ever  changing  their  form,  ever  suggest- 
ing, never  realizing.  They  grip  one's  imagina- 
tion. 

People  behold  visions  on  looking  into  a  fire, 
particularly  a  fire  with  embers.  Many  stories 
are  built  on  what  one  sees  at  such  times.  We 
can  have  a  sullen  fire,  a  cheerful  fire,  an  angry 
fire.  These  emotional  experiences  connected 
with  fires  have  been  well  caught  by  Ik  Marvel 
in  his  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor.  The  portrai- 
ture of  his  state  of  feeling,  of  sitting  and  seeing 
the  fire  burn,  of  watching  it  die  away,  lends 
significance  and  emotion  to  the  events  related 
in  the  book.  Such  books  are  read  because  they 
are  true;  these  are  common  feelings  that  all 
people  have  in  connection  with  such  fires. 

But  there  are  also  feelings  of  terror  connected 
with  fire.  One  day  the  apron  of  our  oldest 
daughter  caught  fire.  From  an  upper  window 
her  mother  saw  her  running  to  the  house  with 
the  front  of  the  apron  ablaze.  She  hurried 
down-stairs  and  met  the  child  at  the  door;  but, 
as  does  not  usually  happen,  the  running  had 
put  out  the  fire  instead  of  fanning  it.  The 
mother  was  sick  for  several  days  after  that  and 
did  not  recover  for  several  weeks  from  a  pain 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  back.     Many  people 


FIRE  PLAY  57 

have  had  similar  experiences.  It  may  be,  of 
course,  that  there  is  no  special  kind  of  fear  con- 
nected with  fire,  and  that  the  feeling  is  merely 
part  of  a  general  great  fear;  but  there  seems  to 
be  an  abject  terror  aroused  by  fire  which  is  not 
experienced  in  connection  with  other  dangers, 
such  as  danger  from  water  or  wind.  The  heroes 
of  youth  in  our  cities  are  not  those  who  endan- 
ger their  lives  for  the  sake  of  society,  but  the 
firemen  who  fight  the  flames. 

I  stood  on  the  bluff  in  Yokohama  watching 
one  of  the  great  fires  in  Tokio,  twenty  miles 
away.  It  was  a  fire  three  miles  long,  in  the 
heart  of  the  city.  The  sight  of  that  long  line 
of  smoke  twenty  miles  across  the  country  ex- 
cited the  most  intense  feelings  of  awe  and  ter- 
ror. Imagination  flew  to  the  scene  of  the  fire; 
we  knew  what  must  be  happening  there.  At 
another  time  I  have  seen  a  solid  square  of 
houses,  equal  to  about  eight  of  our  city  blocks, 
burning  in  Yokohama.  A  section  of  the  fire 
was  immediately  opposite  our  own  house.  Peo- 
ple who  were  unfamiliar  with  the  fire  fear  be- 
haved in  an  extraordinarily  panic-stricken  way. 
Our  own  house  was  comparatively  safe,  but  to 
stand  on  the  veranda  and  look  at  this  great  fire, 
wholly  beyond  the  power  of  the  Japanese  en- 
gines, produced  a  feeling  of  unreasoning  terror. 


58  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

Fire  lends  a  mysterious  effect  to  the  telling  of 
ghost  stories.  The  heart  beats  unevenly,  and 
the  salivary  glands  are  often  affected.  At  Pratt 
High  School  in  Brooklyn  one  evening  an  enter- 
tainment was  held  at  which  a  ghost  story  was 
told.  It  was  a  very  good  story,  but  the  effect 
on  the  audience  was  slight.  Then  all  lights 
were  put  out  and  another  story  was  told.  Some 
alcohol  mixed  in  salt  was  burned  in  a  bowl. 
The  man  who  told  the  second  story  held  the 
bowl  between  his  knees,  and  his  strong  features 
were  illumined  by  the  yellow  light  flashing  and 
going.  The  effect  upon  all  the  listeners  was 
very  marked ;  one  girl  was  carried  from  the  room 
in  hysterics.  The  story  itself  was  no  better 
than  the  first,  but  in  the  second  case  the  great 
overmastering  fear  of  the  ages  had  been  touched, 
the  fear  of  the  dark,  the  fear  of  the  weird  occa- 
sioned by  flickering  flame. 

A  group  of  facts  such  as  these  seems  to  de- 
mand some  explanation  which  shall  relate  it 
to  the  development  of  our  kind,  for  it  seems  to 
be  evident  that  animals  do  not  have  the  whole 
human  range  of  feelings  about  fire.  They  have 
the  elemental  panic  terror  to  an  even  greater 
degree  than  human  beings.  Cases  of  the  rescue 
of  horses  and  cattle  from  burning  stables  illus- 
trate this.     But  animals  do  not  have  the  desire 


FIRE  PLAY  59 

to  care  for  fire.  A  fire  left  in  the  woods  will 
not  be  treated  by  animals  as  it  is  treated  by 
man. 

The  whole  human  race  has  had  feelings  re- 
garding the  significance  of  fire — fire,  the  de- 
stroyer, and  fire,  the  protector.  Long  before  the 
earliest  historical  records  of  humankind  there 
are  evidences  that  our  forefathers  used  fire. 
And  as  soon  as  these  records  begin  we  find  the 
fire  feelings  developed  perhaps  as  fully  as  we 
have  them  now — all  the  early  care  for  the  fire, 
the  sacred  fire  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  the 
lamps  which  were  never  allowed  to  go  out,  the 
ceremony  before  the  council  fire,  the  worship  of 
the  sun.  The  first  Greek  state  officers  of  whom 
we  have  any  record  were  the  fire-tenders.  The 
individuals  appointed  to  care  for  the  fires  be- 
came the  later  judges,  magistrates,  counsellors, 
kings. 

Fire  has  been  the  centre  of  the  family  and  the 
social  life  among  many  people.  About  the  com- 
mon fire  there  developed  the  common  interests. 
Fire  has  been  closely  connected  with  the  relig- 
ious life  of  the  race.  Among  the  Aryan  peo- 
ples at  first  the  father  was  the  custodian  of  the 
fire;  later  this  office  was  transferred  to  one  of 
the  daughters.  The  virgins  who  kept  the  fires 
of  Vesta  possessed  powers  over  life  and  death. 


60  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

The  maintenance  of  perpetual  fire  in  lamps  has 
been  identified  with  religion  in  the  Greek  and 
Roman  churches  for  many  generations.  To-day 
we  ally  fire  with  religion  in  our  incense,  our  can- 
dles, though  not  to  the  same  extent  as  did  the 
early  peoples.  I  need  only  mention  the  fire- 
worshippers.  In  the  Old  Testament  we  hear  of 
the  worship  of  Moloch,  and  the  kings  who 
"made  their  sons  pass  through  the  fire"  as  a 
gift  to  the  gods.  The  first  quarrel  mentioned  in 
the  Bible  was  about  smoke.  Cain  complained 
that  his  smoke  went  along  the  ground,  while 
Abel's  ascended  straight  to  heaven;  and  so  Cain 
killed  Abel.  The  behavior  of  smoke  was  in- 
dicative of  the  attitude  of  the  Governing  Power. 
Fire  among  many  peoples  has  been  the  symbol 
of  the  soul,  the  living  thing,  that  which  subsists 
on  matter  but  is  not  matter,  that  which  has  no 
body  but  consumes  body. 

The  council  fire  was  one  which  bore  no  rela- 
tion itself  to  the  process  of  deliberation  going  on 
around  it.  Yet  deliberation  and  revery  have 
been  associated  so  often  with  the  council  fire 
and  smoking  together  that  it  is  difficult  to  think 
of  the  connection  as  a  purely  accidental  one. 
The  feeling  that  fire  is  related  to  all  great  occa- 
sions still  survives  in  many  civic  celebrations. 
In  Germany  and  Scandinavia  the  fires  that  are 


FIRE  PLAY  61 

lit  at  Easter  trace  their  origin  to  the  ancient 
celebration  at  tke  return  of  the  sun  god,  Balder. 
The  vision  of  most  of  our  American  cities  on 
election  night  is  a  vision  of  what  the  normal 
boy  or  girl  does  when  he  or  she  gets  the  oppor- 
tunity. Fires  are  on  the  streets  of  the  large 
cities  by  the  thousands;  the  children  have  made 
preparations  for  them  weeks  in  advance.  The 
policemen  have  their  minds  otherwise  occupied 
at  the  time. 

These  feelings  of  the  significance  of  fire,  run- 
ning through  all  human  history,  raise  the  ques- 
tion of  its  meaning  in  connection  with  the  de- 
velopment of  our  kind.  There  must  be  some 
reason  why  these  feelings  have  been  preserved 
by  natural  selection — by  the  law  that  those 
tribes  and  species  shall  survive  which  have  char- 
acteristics best  fitting  them  to  survive.  Man 
alone  of  all  living  beings  has  learned  to  master 
fire,  and  this  mastery  has  been  a  great  force  in 
his  cultural  advancement.  It  makes  no  differ- 
ence whether  he  first  took  it  from  the  overflow- 
ing, burning  lava,  from  the  stroke  of  lightning 
on  some  dead  tree  in  a  forest,  or  whether  he  in- 
vented it  by  the  friction  of  wood  against  wood, 
by  striking  bamboo  against  bamboo — those  in- 
dividuals, those  tribes  that  had  the  instinct  feel- 
ings to  care  for  fire  were  equipped  for  a  broad- 


62  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

ening  career  which  was  not  open  to  those  who 
were  merely  afraid  of  fire.  By  learning  to  care 
for  fire,  those  early  men  were  able  not  only  to 
escape  the  danger  of  the  large,  uncontrolled  con- 
flagration, but  they  were  also  able  to  make  use 
of  the  small,  controlled  fire  for  their  own  con- 
venience. 

Pire  was  the  great  destroyer  of  the  forests  and 
towns  in  those  days.  But  fire  was  also  the  best 
protector  from  animals,  and  animals  were  the 
chief  peril  of  man  then.  His  chief  danger  did 
not  consist,  as  it  did  later,  in  plague,  typhoid, 
smallpox,  tuberculosis.  He  feared  the  sabre- 
toothed  tiger,  and  the  other  creatures  that  we 
see  in  the  natural-history  museum.  Fire  served 
as  protection  from  these  animals.  A  cave  with 
a  good  fire  in  front  of  it  meant  safety.  The 
man  of  to-day,  when  he  goes  out  in  the  forest 
and  lies  down  at  night  beside  a  large,  controlled 
fire,  such  as  is  made  by  piling  the  trunks  of  three 
or  four  trees  together;  when  he  covers  himself 
with  his  blanket  and  knows  that  there  are  no 
other  human  beings  within  many  miles,  he,  too, 
experiences  those  fire  feelings  which  were  of 
use  ages  ago.  There  may  be  no  bears  or  tigers 
to  be  protected  from,  but  he  is  conscious  of  a 
sense  of  protection.  Practically  all  people  have 
this  feeling. 


FIRE  PLAY  63 

Through  fire  the  cold,  energy-giving  regions 
of  the  earth  were  opened  up  to  man.  Fire  was 
the  protector  from  cold.  By  means  of  it  the 
food-supply  could  be  extended.  The  people 
who  controlled  fire  could  eat  foods  not  other- 
wise eatable,  and  they  could  preserve  game  and 
fruits.  The  forest  could  be  cleared  and  fields 
cut  out  by  the  use  of  fire — a  task  which  would 
otherwise  have  been  infinitely  laborious  without 
machinery.  No  metals  can  be  worked  except 
by  fire.  The  tribes  that  first  cared  for  fire  had 
the  first  use  of  metals  and  tools.  All  the  pot- 
tery we  have  depends  on  fire.  Clay  baked  in 
the  sun  is  relatively  unstable;  but  clay  baked 
in  the  fire  forms  bricks  which  are  more  enduring 
than  the  granite  on  which  rests  the  foundation 
of  the  earth. 

For  these  reasons  we  to-day  have  these  feel- 
ings about  fire.  They  come  from  the  earliest 
life  of  the  human  race;  they  are  one  of  the  great 
means  by  which  the  human  race  has  survived 
and  evolved.  The  sense  of  terror,  the  sense  of 
protection,  the  sense  of  religious  significance 
and  of  beauty  attached  to  fire  are  part  of  our 
inheritance  as  human  beings — a  most  valuable 
part,  and  closely  related  to  our  being  here  at  all. 

Fire  stands  essentially  as  the  symbol  of  human 
feeling  in  the  wTorld. 


64  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

A  realization  of  the  race  value  of  fire,  fire  the 
domesticator,  has  led  to  the  selection  of  the 
camp  fire  as  the  symbol  of  a  great  present-day 
social  movement.  "The  Ode  to  the  Fire"  of  the 
Camp  Fire  Girls  expresses  these  values: 

"OFire! 

Long  years  ago,  when  our  fathers  fought  with  ani- 
mals, you  were  their  protection. 

From  the  cruel  cold  of  winter,  you  saved  them. 

When  they  needed  food  you  changed  the  flesh  of 
beasts  into  savory  meat  for  them. 

During  all  the  ages  your  mysterious  flame  has  been 
a  symbol  to  them  for  Spirit. 

So  (to-night)  we  light  our  fire  in  remembrance  of 
the  Great  Spirit  who  gave  you  to  us." 

"The  Fire  Maker's  Desire"  voices  the  univer- 
sality and  brotherhood  of  man  associated  with 
fire: 

"As  fuel  is  brought  to  the  fire 
So  I  purpose  to  bring 
My  strength, 
My  ambition, 
My  heart's  desire, 
My  joy, 

And  my  sorrow, 
To  the  fire 
Of  humankind. 

"For  I  will  tend 
As  my  fathers  have  tended, 


FIRE   PLAY  65 

And  my  fathers'  fathers 
Since  time  began, 
The  fire  that  is  called 
The  love  of  man  for  man, 
The  love  of  man  for  God." 

"The  Torch-Bearer's  Desire"  is  an  expression 
of  ideals: 

"That  light  which  has  been  given  to  me, 
I  desire  to  pass  undimmed  to  others." 

So  we  want  our  children  to  play  with  fire  in 
order  that  they  may  come  fully  into  their  racial 
inheritance.  The  child  wrho  has  not  had  the 
opportunity  to  play  with  fire  has  missed  one  of 
the  great  means  for  the  realization  of  mystery, 
in  its  good  sense.  And  the  person  who  has  no 
consciousness  of  mystery  fails  to  understand 
the  world.  If  all  nature  seems  cold,  calculated 
science,  then  we  have  a  view  of  the  world  which 
is  certainly  untrue.  But  that  view  of  the  whole 
which  appreciates  the  relation  of  things,  which 
recognizes,  also,  the  great  beyond,  and  knows 
the  world  not  only  in  an  intellectual  but  also  in 
this  feeling  sense — that  is  an  estimation  which 
it  seems  to  me  is  real.  The  contact  of  the  child 
with  the  expanse  of  ocean,  with  the  dark,  with 
fire — these  are  among  the  chief  ways  by  which 
the  imagination  reaches  out,  throwing  its  roots 


66  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

way  down  in  the  instinct  feelings  of  the  past, 
and  giving  the  power  of  relationship  without 
which  life  is  not  particularly  significant.  It  is 
difficult  to  write  poetry  over  a  gas  log. 


CHAPTER   VI 

TOYS— CONSTRUCTION    AND    OWNER- 
SHIP 

^T  a  mother's  club  in  a  New  York  settle- 
A-\  ment  house  a  discussion  arose  concern- 
ing what  one  thing  each  mother  would 
like  to  have  provided  for  her  boys,  in  addition 
to  what  they  already  had.  One  thoughtful 
woman  claimed  that  a  wood-shed  was  her  great- 
est need.  "My  boys  have  reached  the  age 
when  they  want  to  make  things,"  she  said. 
"They  want  to  whittle  and  split  and  hammer; 
they  want  to  build  boats.  But  when  I  let  them 
try  it  in  our  rooms,  the  landlord  came  up  and 
very  angrily  declared  that  he  would  put  us  out 
if  we  did  not  stop  that  noise.  If  we  only  had  a 
wood-shed  where  the  boys  could  make  things,  I 
think  they  might  grow  up  properly,  without 
going  on  the  street  so  much  with  bad  boys." 

This  woman  had  noticed  a  common  phenome- 
non among  boys,  the  dawning  of  a  desire  to 
make  things  with  their  hands.  Boys  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  have  this  desire.  A  letter  from  a 
missionary  in  Japan  describes  the  number  of 

67 


68  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

things  which  two  boys  made  in  a  very  short 
time,  changing  in  interest  from  one  thing  to 
another,  as  each  was  completed.  For  a  time 
they  busied  themselves  making  boats — dug-outs 
of  various  shapes.  Then  they  grew  more  ambi- 
tious. One  of  them  cut  a  paper  pattern  for  a 
tin  boat,  and  then  made  it  in  tin  and  got  the 
tinsmith  to  solder  it  together.  Then  they  de- 
cided to  make  another  and  solder  it  themselves. 
The  knowledge  gained  in  this  way  was  imme- 
diately applied  to  the  repairing  of  an  old  tin 
lamp  for  a  playhouse  which  they  had  built  in 
the  back  yard.  They  also  made  for  this  house 
a  stove  out  of  a  kerosene  can.  At  the  same 
time  the  interest  in  boats  progressed.  One  of 
the  boys  made  a  canoe  of  three  boards,  six  feet 
long,  cut  and  bent  into  shape.  It  was  his  all- 
absorbing  interest  until  he  had  learned  to  han- 
dle it  perfectly  on  the  pond.  Then  he  aban- 
doned it  and  spent  a  week's  hard  work  on  a 
canvas  canoe,  bending  the  bamboo  ribs  over  a 
fire  and  wiring  them  together. 

Toys  with  which  something  can  be  done  are 
much  more  acceptable  to  a  growing  boy  than 
toys  which  are  completed.  If  he  receives  an 
engine  and  track  all  complete  he  is  wonderfully 
pleased,  but  he  does  not  play  with  it  for  a  very 
long  time.     He  exhausts  its  possibilities  soon, 


TOYS  69 

and  there  is  nothing  new  to  be  done.  But  if  he 
is  given  the  materials,  ideas,  and  patterns  for  a 
little  boat,  there  are  hours  and  even  days  of 
useful  play  in  store  for  him.  A  knife  is  a  toy 
for  which  the  average  boy  longs;  there  are  so 
many  things  he  can  do  with  it.  A  tool  of  any 
kind,  a  chisel  or  hammer,  has  a  similar  attrac- 
tion. Toys  are  objects  in  connection  with 
which  our  instinct  feelings  have  a  chance  to 
develop.  They  might  be  called  pegs  on  the 
wall  of  the  mind  on  which  to  hang  instinct  feel- 
ings. The  doll  is  a  peg  upon  which  hangs  the 
bulk  of  the  domestic  feelings  of  the  girl.  The 
ball  and  bat  for  the  boy  are  toys  around  which 
are  clustered  and  in  connection  with  which  are 
developed  a  large  number  of  activities  and  feel- 
ings. 

The  great  variety  of  block  plays  shows  this 
same  interest  in  construction.  Some  years  ago 
I  wanted  to  arrange  some  plays  for  my  children 
which  should  make  use  of  the  desire  to  con- 
struct, but  should  not  primarily  involve  finger 
movements  and  minute  co-ordinations.  I  had 
blocks  made  large  enough  so  that  their  use  would 
involve  arm  movements.  After  some  experi- 
ment I  found  that  blocks  about  the  size  of  bricks, 
twice  as  wide  as  they  are  thick  and  twice  as  long 
as  they  are  wide,  are  more  useful  than  any 


70  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

other  shape.  A  thickness  of  one  and  a  half 
inches  allows  a  baby's  hand  to  take  a  firm 
grasp.  I  had  some  three  hundred  wooden 
blocks  made,  all  of  this  size,  and  gave  them  to 
the  children. 

For  about  six  consecutive  years  those  blocks 
were  the  chief  interest  of  one  or  more  of  the 
children.  An  observation  of  the  various  struc- 
tures made  and  the  kind  of  buildings  built 
showed  that  all  the  children  went  through  the 
same  general  stages  in  block  plays.  The  first 
step  consisted  in  simply  piling  up  the  blocks 
and  knocking  them  down.  My  boy  did  that 
more  than  any  of  the  girls.  Sometimes  the 
children  liked  to  lay  the  blocks  in  rows.  But  it 
was  not  until  some  time  after  they  had  begun 
playing  with  the  blocks  that  they  cared  to  have 
the  corners  fit  and  the  angles  placed  accurately. 

The  interest  in  playing  with  the  blocks  was 
intense,  but  intermittent.  The  children  never 
played  with  them  for  many  weeks  at  a  time. 
But  as  they  grew  older  the  period  of  their  play 
impulse  grew  longer.  A  baby  might  play  with 
the  blocks  every  day  for  a  little  while;  but  a 
boy  or  girl  of  seven  or  eight  played  all  day  long 
for  a  number  of  days  or  a  week,  until  that  pulse 
of  interest  was  exhausted.  These  bursts  of  in- 
terest were  generally  related  to  the  discovery  of 


TOYS  71 

some  fresh  form  of  construction.  For  instance, 
when  the  child  first  discovered  the  principle  of 
balance  which  underlies  bridge  building,  there 
was  a  very  long  pulse  of  interest.  The  children 
tried  many  kinds  of  bridges,  until  they  had  ex- 
hausted the  form.  When  they  received  the  no- 
tion of  building  houses,  there  was  another  period 
of  interest,  until  they  could  discover  no  fresh 
varieties  of  house.  They  built  as  many  kinds 
of  houses  as  they  could  invent  and  then  stopped. 
But  they  never  completed  a  logical  development 
of  all  the  simple  forms  of  block  arrangement. 
They  never,  for  instance,  worked  out  all  the 
possible  relations  of  two  blocks  to  each  other. 
Their  interests  were  grouped,  not  logically,  but 
practically.  The  development  of  the  consecu- 
tive forms  of  building,  which  has  been  similar 
with  all  the  children,  has  not  been  logical.  The 
particular  form  that  the  child  happened  to  hit 
upon  was  executed  in  as  many  ways  as  he 
could  think  of. 

The  role  of  the  teacher  appears  to  come  in 
when  the  child  has  exhausted  his  own  ability 
to  invent.  As  soon  as  he  begins  to  do  the  same 
things  over  and  over  again,  a  teacher  may  sug- 
gest a  new  form.  But  the  teacher  who  attempts 
to  show  all  the  forms  to  the  child  at  once  de- 
stroys the  child's  interest  and  renders  him  blase. 


72  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

To  one  of  my  children  I  showed  in  rapid  suc- 
cession all  the  generic  forms  of  block  arrange- 
ment— houses,  bridges,  mechanical  forms.  The 
child  was  too  young  to  appreciate  them,  or  to 
have  any  self-activity  following  the  discovery. 
From  that  child  I  took  away  all  the  pleasure  of 
block  plays.  I  prevented  him  from  developing 
his  own  instinct  feelings  in  connection  with  his 
play.  Nothing  can  so  sap  the  interest  and  de- 
stroy the  educative  value  of  play  so  quickly  as 
to  discover  everything  for  the  child.  This  is 
the  fault  of  the  too  complex  toy.  The  chief 
value  of  any  toy  is  that  the  boy  can  use  it  to  do 
something  with. 

Self-development  through  playing  is  also 
brought  about  through  the  very  limitations  of 
material  in  these  block  plays.  They  were 
wooden  blocks,  all  shaped  alike.  I  might  have 
given  the  children  colored  blocks  of  many 
shapes,  German  stone  blocks  with  lintels,  door- 
ways and  cupolas,  so  that  building  would  have 
been  easy  and  varied.  But  with  the  one  shape 
of  block  the  difference  in  construction  lay  in  the 
imagination  of  the  children  rather  than  in  the 
thing  used.  They  developed  a  power  of  doing 
new  things  with  old  material,  as  they  could 
never  have  done  had  they  always  had  new  ma- 
terial from  the  start.     To  a  large  extent  inde- 


TOYS  73 

pendence,  power,  mastery  over  the  material 
world,  comes  from  using  old  things  in  new  ways 
rather  than  from  having  the  tool  or  the  imple- 
ment that  is  perfectly  adapted  to  the  present 
condition.  In  connection  with  these  blocks,  all 
the  development  seemed  to  lie  in  the  imagina- 
tion rather  than  in  any  new  muscular  co-ordina- 
tions. No  special  order  of  neuro-muscular  de- 
velopment was  noticeable  in  connection  with  the 
plays.  But  the  blocks  were  used  with  increas- 
ing complexity,  as  imaginative  material  to  rep- 
resent trains  or  houses.  Frequently  a  social 
play  would  be  carried  through  with  the  use  of 
the  blocks  as  symbols,  dividing  one  home  from 
another. 

The  building  of  houses  went  through  a  defi- 
nite evolution.  At  first  the  children  were  satis- 
fied to  make  a  pile  of  blocks  and  knock  it  down. 
Presently  they  began  to  prefer  to  make  the  pile 
straight  and  regular.  They  wanted  the  edges 
of  the  blocks  to  fit.  Later  they  came  to  the 
idea  of  symmetry.  They  built  their  houses 
with  a  door  on  one  side  and  a  door  on  the  other 
side,  a  window  at  this  end  and  a  window  at 
that  end.  This  second  stage  of  aesthetic  devel- 
opment is  the  stage  in  which  many  of  us  still 
find  ourselves.  We  furnish  our  houses  in  this 
way,  a  rug  here  and  a  rug  opposite;  if  there  is  a 


74  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

plate  on  the  dining-room  table  on  one  side  there 
must  be  a  corresponding  plate  on  the  other 
side.  But  the  children  came  in  their  block  plays 
to  the  ideal  of  balance,  which  is  a  more  pro- 
found aesthetic  principle  than  that  of  symme- 
try. There  was  an  endeavor  to  have  balanced 
structures,  not  symmetrical,  but  proportioned. 
There  were  forts  with  their  defenders;  one  or 
two  houses  for  officers,  a  large  three-story  house. 
In  all  these  ways  the  children  went  through  a 
definite  mental  development,  accomplished  with 
the  aid  of  blocks.  Other  toys  may  accomplish 
similar  results  if  they  give  the  child  an  oppor- 
tunity to  express  his  own  activities.  His  per- 
sonality must  be  allowed  to  develop  through 
doing.  This  is  not  merely  desirable  for  the 
child's  education;  it  is  necessary  for  his  enjoy- 
ment of  the  play  itself. 

Doll  play  is  a  form  of  toy  play  in  connection 
with  which  very  complex  mental  and  social  de- 
velopments take  place.  Dolls,  like  other  toys, 
have  their  chief  interest  in  the  fact  that  they 
serve  as  instruments  about  which  to  cluster  in- 
stinct feelings  that  need  expression  and  develop- 
ment. In  this  case  it  is  the  domestic  instincts 
that  are  ripening.  Love  grows  not  with  the 
beauty  and  completeness  of  the  doll,  but  with 
the  amount  of  time  and  attention  given  to  it 


TOYS  75 

by  the  girl.  Hence  arises  the  great  affection 
which  girls  have  for  rag  dolls.  The  rag  doll 
gives  more  opportunity  for  work,  and,  there- 
fore, more  opportunity  for  the  expression  of 
affection.  Many  girls  are  exceedingly  lonely 
without  their  dolls,  but  find  a  sufficient  sense  of 
companionship  as  soon  as  they  have  them,  even 
if  there  are  no  human  beings  near.  Girls  talk 
to  dolls  extensively  and  tell  them  their  troubles. 

There  are  many  kinds  of  dolls.  Miss  Maud 
Shipe  tells  of  "flower  dolls"  with  which  she  used 
to  play.  In  a  corner  of  the  garden  grew  a  num- 
ber of  old-fashioned  flowers,  petunias,  zinnias, 
four-o'clocks,  and  phlox.  The  dolls  were  usually 
made  with  the  half-opened  bud  of  a  zinnia  for 
body.  They  were  dressed  in  skirts  made  of 
petunias  or  four-o'clocks  turned  to  show  their 
brightest  colors.  Caps  of  salvia  or  verbena  buds 
were  worn.  Men  dolls  were  made  of  pinched- 
off  stems  of  petunias,  two  serving  for  legs  and 
a  thicker  one  for  the  body.  Sunflowers  were 
dug  out  to  form  doll  houses.  For  several  years 
the  children  played  dolls  with  these  flowers,  from 
early  spring  till  late  in  the  fall. 

Another  form  of  doll  play  was  carried  on  in 
the  orchard.  Wild  grass  grew  there,  which 
branched  out  into  thick  tufts  at  the  top.  These 
tufts  of  grass  were  called  the  heads  of  children, 


76  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

and  were  braided  into  long  plaits  of  "hair." 
This  play  was  often  very  intricate,  leading  into 
many  styles  of  hair-dressing.  Sometimes  the 
children  were  considered  members  of  an  orphan 
asylum,  because  there  were  so  many  of  them. 

Miss  Shipe  also  developed  at  about  the  age 
of  thirteen  a  complicated  series  of  plays  with 
paper  dolls.  The  dolls  themselves  were  very 
crude,  cut  out  from  folded  paper,  so  that  both 
sides  were  alike.  They  served  merely  as  sym- 
bols around  which  to  gather  the  complex  series 
of  relationships  which  the  girls  invented.  There 
were  large  family  organizations,  with  names 
and  histories  for  each  individual.  There  were 
houses,  represented  by  strips  of  paper  marking 
the  walls,  and  furniture,  consisting  of  labelled 
bits  of  paper.  As  the  children  played  they  kept 
up  a  kind  of  continued  story,  adding  to  it  daily. 
They  had  weddings  and  funerals,  visits,  parties, 
Christmas  dinners;  and  any  event  which  once 
occurred  was  remembered  and  alluded  to  as 
part  of  the  family  history.  The  grown-up  sons 
and  daughters  married  and  had  children  of  their 
own,  so  that  at  last  there  were  two  or  three 
houses.  Finally  a  church,  a  store,  and  a  school 
were  added  to  the  now  full-grown  community. 

The  following  year  the  dolls  ceased  to  be  used 
even  as  convenient  symbols,  but  the  continued 


TOYS  77 

story  was  kept  up.  This  seems  to  show  a  regu- 
lar progression  from  the  simpler  doll  plays  in 
which  the  actual  doll  was  prominent,  to  the 
later  plays,  based  on  social  relationships  and 
domestic  events,  but  no  longer  dependent  even 
on  the  symbolic  doll.  In  fact,  Miss  Shipe  her- 
self mentions  such  a  progression,  extending  from 
a  time  preceding  her  play  with  paper  dolls. 
She  first  played  with  regular  dolls,  gradually 
coming  to  prefer  the  smaller  dolls  because  she 
"could  do  more  things  with  them";  then  her 
interest  went  to  paper  dolls  cut  from  magazines 
and  bearing  an  actual  resemblance  to  people, 
and  finally  to  the  little  paper  dolls  with  round 
heads  and  bodies  and  long  skirts,  which  served 
simply  as  symbols  on  which  to  hang  a  story. 
This  is  a  natural  progression,  but  it  is  by  no 
means  an  inevitable  one,  as  other  girls  tell  of 
quite  different  experiences  with  dolls. 

When  one  thinks  of  all  the  activities  useful 
for  later  life  that  are  first  connected  with  dolls, 
the  educational  value  of  this  form  of  play  is  not 
to  be  questioned.  It  takes  in  the  whole  problem 
of  the  making  of  clothing,  the  cutting,  fitting, 
pattern-making,  the  ornamentation  of  dress,  the 
use  of  color.  So  many  persons  learn  these 
things  later  in  life  at  very  great  expense,  or  to 
the   humiliation   of   their   parents,    when    they 


78  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

begin  to  dress  themselves.  My  own  girls  ac- 
quired most  of  their  knowledge  of  the  relation 
of  form  to  color,  and  styles  of  dress  to  the  indi- 
vidual, through  their  play  with  dolls.  I  remem- 
ber when  the  idea  first  came  to  the  girls  that 
there  should  be  a  connection  between  complexion 
and  hats.  Immediately  they  tried  all  shapes 
and  sizes  of  hats  to  observe  the  effect.  Those 
girls  have  an  experience  with  reference  to  cloth- 
ing which  could  have  been  secured  in  later  life 
only  with  difficulty  and  expense. 

The  making  of  doll  houses  is  also  a  play  of 
educational  value.  One  winter  some  of  my 
children  spent  nearly  three  months  making  a 
doll's  house  with  a  complete  set  of  doll  furniture, 
sawed  from  designs.  The  wall-paper  in  the 
bedroom  was  ornamented  with  a  pattern  of  sail- 
ing ships.  The  stove  was  complete  with  all 
cooking  utensils.  There  were  chairs  of  all  pat- 
terns, some  of  them  copied  from  an  old  museum 
near  by.  The  children  thus  secured  an  idea  of 
applied  art.  They  learned  the  use  of  a  color 
scheme  in  the  rooms  of  houses,  the  use  of  design 
in  architecture  and  furnishings. 

Doll  parties  are  occasions  for  learning  a  large 
part  of  the  requirements  of  social  life.  Family 
relations  and  social  customs  are  developed  with 
increasing    complexity.     The    doll    plays    may 


TOYS  79 

branch  out  into  other  related  plays  at  about  the 
age  of  twelve  or  thirteen,  as  was  shown  in  the 
case  of  Miss  Shipe's  paper  dolls.  The  dressing 
and  undressing  of  dolls  and  the  actual  care  of 
them  come  largely  before  this  age.  At  this 
time  most  girls  cease  their  most  active  playing 
with  dolls  and  are  more  interested  in  babies 
and  romances.  Every  one  of  our  five  children 
has  been  "borrowed"  as  a  baby,  to  be  trundled 
around  by  girls  of  thirteen  and  fourteen,  not 
because  our  babies  were  particularly  beautiful, 
but  because  the  girls  felt  the  need  of  something 
to  care  for.  The  doll  was  no  longer  satisfactory ; 
they  wanted  something  more  real. 

Ownership 

Closely  connected  with  the  child's  personal 
and  social  development  are  plays  concerned 
with  ownership.  Part  of  the  joy  in  making 
toys  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  boy  now  has  some- 
thing which  belongs  to  him,  because  he  has 
created  it,  something  which  he  can  take  about 
with  him  and  show  to  other  boys.  But  whether 
or  not  the  child  displays  his  possessions,  and 
whether  or  not  those  possessions  are  toys,  there 
is  a  very  distinct  joy  in  the  mere  sense  of  owner- 
ship. The  first  thing  that  I  have  a  definite  re- 
membrance of  owning  was  a  pair  of  copper-toed 


80  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

boots.  It  was  in  July  and  exceedingly  hot,  and 
the  boots  were  heavy  and  high.  The  only  way 
in  which  I  could  be  comfortable  in  those  boots 
was  to  sit  with  my  feet  on  the  window  sill  in  a 
draft.  Nevertheless,  they  were  my  boots  and  I 
found  joy  in  having  them  on,  in  spite  of  discom- 
fort. 

When  my  small  boy  began  to  realize  that  cer- 
tain things  belonged  to  him,  he  was  not  happy 
unless  he  could  take  them  with  him  everywhere. 
At  night  he  wanted  all  his  own  belongings  in 
bed  with  him.  He  had  a  rag  doll  and  an  en- 
gine, and  one  or  two  crusts  of  bread  which  he 
saved,  to  take  to  bed.  For  a  long  time  one  of 
my  daughters  had  the  habit  of  hiding  food  in 
various  places  throughout  the  house.  Pieces 
of  bread,  parts  of  bananas,  anything  that  could 
be  carried  away  unobserved  from  the  table, 
were  hidden  behind  screens  and  curtains  and 
promptly  forgotten.  She  was  obeying  an  un- 
usually strong  instinct  for  the  hoarding  of  pos- 
sessions. There  was  no  possibility  of  future 
lack;  but  she  had  the  feeling  nevertheless. 

A  small  orphan  was  adopted  into  a  home,  com- 
ing from  an  asylum  in  which  there  was  no  in- 
dividual ownership  of  property.  The  children 
had  been  adequately  clothed,  their  beds  were 
neat,  and  they  had  plenty  of  food;  but  they  did 


TOYS  81 

not  own  anything.  The  first  night  when  this 
child  was  put  to  bed  in  her  new  home,  her  gar- 
ments were  laid  on  a  chair  and  she  was  told: 
"Those  are  your  clothes.  They  will  be  put  here 
so  that  you  will  find  them  in  the  morning."  She 
did  not  seem  to  understand,  but  asked:  "Shall 
I  have  them  to-morrow?'  "Yes,  those  are  all 
your  clothes."  "Can  I  put  them  on  the  next 
day,  too?"  she  asked.  "Yes,"  she  was  told. 
She  repeated  the  same  questions  about  her  shoes. 
"Are  these  all  mine?"  she  asked.  And  then, 
when  she  was  ready  for  bed,  she  took  all  the 
clothes  into  her  arms.  They  were  the  first 
things  that  child  had  ever  owned  in  her  life. 

Ownership  is  closely  related  to  development 
of  personality.  We  shall  never  know  how  to 
treat  possessions  that  we  have  in  common  until 
we  have  a  high  sense  of  personal  ownership. 
The  person  who  owns  nothing  is  irresponsible. 
We  are,  indeed,  training  children  to  live  in  a 
social  world.  The  sky  and  the  trees  are  general 
property.  We  are  increasingly  owning  many 
things  through  community  partnership — schools, 
parks,  playgrounds.  But  the  relation  of  the 
child  to  school  property,  school  text-books, 
school  furniture,  shows  how  slowly  the  sense 
of  personal  responsibility  attaches  itself  to  ob- 
jects owned  in  common.     The  feeling  may  be 


82  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

developed  and  should  be.  But  it  will  be  de- 
veloped more  easily  by  recognizing  the  sense  of 
individual  proprietorship  than  by  violating  this 
feeling.  The  sense  of  ownership  is  very  strong 
and  fundamental.  The  boy  who  owns  a  stamp- 
album  and  loses  it  through  the  thieving  instincts 
of  another  boy  feels  that  his  personality  has  been 
outraged.  His  feeling  is  quite  different  from 
that  which  he  instinctively  has  when  school 
property  is  disturbed;  though,  later  in  life, 
with  the  dawn  of  class  and  school  loyalty,  the 
feeling  for  the  banners,  trophies,  and  other  pos- 
sessions of  his  class  may  come  to  be  even  stronger 
than  was  the  earlier  individual  feeling.  But 
the  later  sense  of  common  ownership  is  developed 
through  the  sense  of  individual  ownership.  Per- 
sonal responsibility  is  not  adequately  developed 
unless  the  child  has  the  opportunity  to  own 
things,  to  trade  with  them,  to  have  and  exercise 
the  sense  of  possession. 


CHAPTER    VII 

MASCULINE  AND  FEMININE 
DIFFERENCES 

IN  the  discussion  of  plays,  recollections  come 
to  each  of  us  which  depend  largely  on 
whether  we  are  men  or  women.  My  first 
vivid  memory  of  my  relation  to  a  doll  centred 
about  the  time  when  my  sister  had  a  party  and 
asked  me  to  go  up-stairs  to  bring  down  her  doll. 
It  was  a  large  doll,  and,  with  a  small  boy's  in- 
genuity, I  tied  a  string  around  its  neck  and 
attached  the  other  end  to  a  broomstick,  and  so 
came  into  the  room  dragging  the  doll.  My 
sister's  actions  at  the  sight  showed  that  her 
feelings  toward  that  doll  were  very  different  from 
mine. 

There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  many  plays 
which  are  pre-eminently  boys'  plays  and  possess 
relatively  small  interest  for  girls.  The  hunting 
and  fighting  plays  come  under  this  head.  Boys 
compete  more  than  girls.  Competition  is  an 
ever-present  element  in  their  lives.  For  this 
reason  they  are  accustomed  to  take  defeat 
better  than  girls.     When  twenty  boys  run  in  a 

83 


84  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

race,  only  one  can  win.  It  is  a  rare  boy  who  is 
ahead  of  his  fellows  most  of  the  time.  Boys 
learn  to  accept  these  facts.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  have  seen  the  most  cultivated  and  mature 
young  women  lose  complete  control  of  them- 
selves and  their  tempers  over  a  decision  in  a  game 
of  basket-ball.  Women  do  not  enjoy  competi- 
tion in  the  same  way  as  men  do.  Even  in  adults 
the  possession  of  the  fighting  instinct  is  one  of 
the  differentiations  between  men  and  women. 
There  are  two  sparrows  fighting;  men  like  it, 
women  do  not.  There  is  a  spontaneous  dog 
fight.  Men  gather  around  it;  no  women  will 
be  found  there.  Men  may  stop  the  fight,  but 
while  it  lasts  it  holds  their  interest. 

The  desire  to  throw  straight  and  hard  seems 
to  be  an  instinctively  masculine  desire.  It  is 
not  because  of  man's  special  adaptability  that 
he  is  able  to  throw  better  than  a  woman.  A 
man's  shoulder-joint  is  not  very  different  from 
a  woman's.  In  fact,  what  differences  there  are 
in  the  joint  itself  seem  to  be  in  favor  of  the 
woman.  But  the  man  has  a  better  neural  co- 
ordination, a  different  instinct  feeling  about 
throwing.  Because  girls  do  not  have  this  ideal 
about  throwing  hard  and  straight  they  do  not 
play  the  competitive  games  of  boys  which  re- 
quire this  special  ability. 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  85 

Girls  have,  however,  plays  which  are  pecu- 
liarly their  own.  Many  years  ago,  when  my  first 
daughter  was  born,  my  wife  and  I  planned  for 
her  a  childhood  which  should  omit  dolls.  Most 
of  the  disorders  in  my  family  had  been  of  a 
nervous  type — headaches,  earaches,  backaches, 
rather  than  any  organic  troubles — and  we 
wished  our  children  to  be  out  of  doors  a  great 
deal  in  order  to  counteract  this  tendency.  So 
we  encouraged  our  daughter  in  all  forms  of  boys' 
plays,  and  gave  her  much  opportunity  for  play- 
ing outdoor  games.  We  gave  her  no  dolls,  be- 
cause dolls  lead  to  sedentary  occupation.  We 
decided  that  she  should  not  play  indoors  with 
other  girls,  for  we  feared  that  through  such 
association  the  habit  of  doll  play  would  be  ac- 
quired. She  was  not  taken  down-town  to  the 
shops  where  dolls  are  prominently  displayed 
lest  she  should  be  attracted  by  them.  The 
plan  seemed  to  work  very  well  for  a  few  years. 
But  one  Christmas  she  was  asked  what  gift 
she  wanted  more  than  anything  else.  To  the 
astonishment  and  confusion  of  her  parents  she 
answered:  "Oh,  if  I  could  only  have  a  doll." 
She  received  that  doll  and  so  did  the  three  sisters 
who  came  after  her. 

Some  years  afterward  I  took  a  doll  census  and 
discovered  that  there  were  in  the  house  thirty- 


86  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

seven  members  of  the  doll  family,  each  with  its 
own  name  and  relationships.  That  number  did 
not  include  the  clothes-pin  dolls,  spool  dolls, 
paper  dolls,  dolls  made  from  acorns,  or  any  other 
of  the  great  community  of  ephemeral  dolls  that 
come  and  go.  It  included  only  the  regularly 
established  members  of  the  household.  These 
girls  had  no  more  intense  relations  to  dolls  than 
most  girls  have.  A  remarkable  development  of 
domestic  feeling  was  brought  about  in  connection 
with  this  doll  family.  Doll  play  is  essentially 
girl  play.  Much  of  the  rich,  social  life  of  women 
and  the  ready  use  of  the  hands  come  through 
playing  with  dolls.  The  manual  skill  that  boys 
acquire  is  different  in  kind. 

Some  boys  play  with  dolls  in  much  the  same 
way  as  girls  do.  But  usually  when  boys  play 
with  dolls,  the  military  or  pedagogical  side  is 
emphasized.  Many  boys  have  armies  and  a 
great  many  play  school  with  dolls.  Every  toy 
store  has  different  forms  of  boys'  dolls,  tin-sol- 
diers, lead-soldiers,  with  guns  for  shooting  them. 
Boys  have  been  known  to  make  soldiers  out  of 
screws  and  spools  and  pieces  of  elastic.  The 
boy's  toys  are  usually  just  as  definitely  related 
to  man's  activities  as  the  domestic  doll  play  is 
to  woman's  activity. 

The  difference  is,  of  course,  one  of  emphasis 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  87 

only.  During  those  years  in  which  dolls  were 
of  predominant  interest,  my  girls  also  played 
hide-and-seek  and  various  outdoor  games.  They 
played  these  games  well,  but  did  not  find  them 
ultimately  satisfying.  During  those  same  years 
of  childhood  many  boys  play  with  dolls.  But 
the  games  which  predominate  among  boys  are 
not  built  upon  the  domestic  instinct;  they  are 
built  rather  upon  the  fighting  and  hunting  in- 
stincts. 

The  same  difference  in  instincts  is  evident  in 
adult  life.  The  father's  feeling  toward  his-  chil- 
dren is  quite  different  from  the  mother's.  I 
remember  watching  my  wife  rocking  an  in- 
fant daughter.  She  was  singing  to  the  child 
with  such  manifest  delight,  such  deep-seated 
satisfaction  in  the  outgoing  of  affection,  that  I 
wished  to  experience  the  same  enjoyment.  I 
learned  the  same  song  and  held  the  baby  in  the 
same  way,  but  I  did  not  have  the  same  feeling. 
My  whole  attitude  was  different.  The  funda- 
mental mistake  lay  in  trying  to  duplicate  the 
woman's  relations  to  the  baby.  The  paternal 
instinct  may  be  as  strong  as  the  maternal,  but 
it  is  different. 

Several  statements  received  from  teachers 
with  regard  to  the  kinds  of  play  observed  by 
them  among  girls  and  boys  show  a  striking  one- 


88  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

ness  in  their  conclusionSc  The  details  of  their 
statements  may  not  be  universally  applicable, 
but  will  serve  to  show  the  general  distinctions  in 
play.  Miss  Helen  Frances  Doherty,  for  in- 
stance, noted  the  following  differences  between 
boys  and  girls.  Boys  have  many  muscular 
plays,  wrestling  and  fighting;  girls  have  social 
plays,  calling  and  visiting.  Boys  have  the  con- 
structive impulse  toward  large  things,  such  as 
hut-building;  girls  like  to  construct  minute 
things,  such  as  patterns.  Boys  are  more  anxious 
than  girls  to  try  new  things;  they  show  a  love 
of  the  grotesque  as  opposed  to  the  love  of  the 
conventional  shown  by  girls.  Boys  endure 
dress  for  utilitarian  reasons  only;  girls  love 
dress  for  aesthetic  reasons.  Boys  play  more  often 
in  gangs,  girls  in  pairs.  Among  boys  a  quarrel 
leads  to  a  fight,  among  girls  to  pouting  and  mean 
remarks.  Boys  like  to  shock,  or  expressing  the 
same  instinct  in  another  way,  to  excite  admira- 
tion for  feats  they  perform.  Girls  like  to  act 
shocked  and  to  admire. 

These  same  differences  appear  in  other  re- 
lations besides  those  of  play.  In  school  life  boys 
seem  to  be  more  loyal  to  one  another  than  girls 
are.  Boys  who  get  into  a  scrape,  and  even  other 
boys  who  merely  know  about  the  scrape,  will 
stand  punishment  and  expulsion  from  school  for 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  89 

not  telling.  Sometimes  such  cases  occur  among 
girls,  but  it  is  the  general  testimony  of  the 
teachers  with  whom  I  have  talked  that  boys  are 
far  more  loyal  to  one  another  than  girls  are. 

These  masculine  and  feminine  differences  may 
no  doubt  be  based  to  a  certain  extent  on  social 
tradition.  Girls  can  learn  to  play  basket-ball, 
though  it  is  the  almost  universal  opinion  of  those 
who  have  coached  girls  that  they  acquire  the 
habits  of  team-play  less  readily  than  do  boys. 
Certain  changes  can  no  doubt  be  made  in  the 
accepted  traditions  of  girls'  and  boys'  play. 
But  upon  the  whole,  these  differences  are  so 
fundamental  and  show  themselves  so  spon- 
taneously, that  we  seem  driven  to  the  conclusion 
that  they  are  based  upon  different  instinct 
feelings. 

Certain  great  ideals  have  always  had  a  place 
in  the  human  mind.  Long  before  the  dawn  of 
history  they  were  bound  up  in  the  texture  of 
our  nature;  they  became  ingrained  facts.  In 
women,  one  of  these  ideals  is  loyalty  to  the 
home;  in  men,  loyalty  to  the  tribe.  Necessity 
produced  these  ideals.  They  have  a  survival 
value.  The  very  existence  of  the  race  required 
this  double  set  of  loyalty  impulses.  To  a  cer- 
tain extent  they  have  been  safeguarded  by 
instinct;    to  an  even  greater  extent  social  tra- 


so 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 


ditiof  Bas  become  sponsor  for  them      n.    a 
est  disgrace  to  a  woman  hL    i  T  C  deep" 

%alty  to  the  home     the  deep!  ^  ^  di- 
-n  has  been  dislo^  tC  fi^V 

country.  ulDv>   or  his 

We  have  already  noticed  the  fact  th.t  ^ 
who  were  the  best  runners,  fightts  Sfh     ?"" 
were  best  equipped  to  survt  J  the  *     ? 
for  existence.     For  this  r„  ,  struggJe 

loved  to  fight  hit  !  7  °a  the  b°^S  wh° 
P%ed  at  a,fthese " ^  ^  and  th-efore 
who  survived     Th  Ctmtles>  ^rew  mto  the  men 

develop^  £%&£  *  *?  **- 
of  loyalty  for  a  group      Wi^T  ^  ??  ^ 

eounted  first,  ffis  home  W  ""  ^  tribe 
eomparatively  little  Zael t  2"  V"*"  °f 
P-P-ty,  to  do  with  7h  '  J £ ^J* 
affairs  the  nrinpmU     f  ln   tnbal 

-Kant  dJLte       A  eVe,T  man  '<"•  ^If 

mg,  hunting,  and  wortmn.  •  uature-     -tight- 

feasible  schSuT S  h ,  ga;gs  was  the  oni^ 

Mer .had  to  .tj^*"*"  «-— 

beZJL %£*  f  the  ^  -tinct  which 
«cs  so  prominent  anions?  bovs  in  *w   * 

It  is  also  the  basis  for  the  intent     ,  ****• 

in  team  games  «nH  ;  I       ,  e  interest  taken 

gamCS  and  lnterschool  athletics.     These 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  91 

athletic  competitions  cannot  be  defended  on  the 
ground  of  phy sical  training,  for  they  train  only 
a  small  proportion  of  the  boys,  and  particularly 
those  individuals  who  are  least  in  need  of  train- 
ing. Their  real  justification  is  in  the  spirit  of 
athletics,  the  loyalty  to  school,  the  social  con- 
sciousness which  includes  in  its  grasp  all  the 
students,  not  merely  those  who  actually  com- 
pete. The  effect  of  school  athletics  on  school 
spirit  and  on  the  boy's  recognition  of  his  share  in 
a  larger  whole  was  illustrated  by  the  statement 
of  a  boy  on  the  East  Side  of  New  York.  "Our 
school  wasn't  nothin'  at  all  till  we  got  a  gym," 
he  said.  "Now  we're  the  champions."  It  was 
well  for  that  boy  to  realize  his  partnership  in  a 
group;  it  was  the  beginning  of  training  in  wider 
loyalty. 

It  is  not  sufficient  in  the  cultivation  of  any 
virtue  to  give  maxims  or  formal  instruction. 
In  looking  for  the  beginnings  of  social  morality, 
we  must  discover  the  elements  in  boy  character. 
The  strongest  instinct  which  may  be  utilized  for 
this  purpose  is  the  gang  instinct,  and  one  of 
the  most  wholesome  forms  of  gang  activity  is 
in  athletic  team  sports.  The  gang  is  a  mani- 
festation of  group  loyalty.  It  is  true  that  in 
most  of  our  large  cities  the  tendency  of  the  gang 
is  evil,  because  the  major  part  of  its  activities 


92  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

is,  and  almost  must  be,  against  the  social  order. 
It  is  the  function  of  school  athletics,  when  rightly 
conducted,  to  convert  this  gang  instinct  from 
evil  into  righteousness.  Social  education  is 
going  on  with  all  boys;  we  must  see  to  it  that 
the  education  is  good.  The  gang  is  the  modern 
representative  of  the  tribe,  the  germ  out  of 
which  the  club  and  society  develop.  By  being 
loyal  to  the  gang,  and  having  the  gang  clean  and 
moral,  by  being  loyal  to  the  class  and  school, 
the  qualities  of  social  morality  and  social  con- 
science are  being  developed.  This  is  essentially 
the  root  of  masculine  altruism. 

The  development  of  women  has  been  different. 
They  were  not  predominantly  hunters  or  fight- 
ers, but  cared  for  the  home  and  carried  on  the 
industries.  They  wove  the  cloth,  made  the 
baskets,  tilled  the  soil,  cared  for  the  domestic 
animals,  reared  the  children,  made  the  clothing, 
and  performed  the  numerous  other  duties  that 
centred  around  the  home.  Running,  throwing, 
and  striking  were  not  the  chief  measures  of  their 
usefulness.  The  women  who  were  the  best 
mothers,  who  were  the  most  true  to  their  homes, 
were  the  women  whose  children  survived.  So 
it  is  clear  that  athletics  have  never  been  either  a 
test  or  a  large  factor  in  the  survival  of  women; 
athletics  do  not  test  womanliness  as  they  test 
manliness. 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  93 

An  illustration  of  this  fact  came  to  my  atten- 
tion on  the  occasion  of  a  field-day  meet  for  its 
girls  held  by  one  of  our  New  York  City  high 
schools.  There  were  seven  events,  held  under 
conditions  which  were  practically  the  same  as  the 
conditions  for  events  that  are  annually  held  at 
Vassar  College.  The  high  school  girls  on  their 
first  field-day  made  better  records  in  four  events 
than  had  ever  been  made  by  the  students  of 
Vassar  College.  That  is,  progress  toward  wo- 
manhood had  not  meant  progress  toward  in- 
creased efficiency  in  athletic  sports.  In  basket- 
ball it  is  not  at  all  uncommon  for  a  team  of  girls 
of  about  twelve  years  to  defeat  a  team  of  young 
women  of  college  age.  The  little  girls  are  more 
athletic.  Their  bodies  have  not  yet  differen- 
tiated into  the  form  of  the  adult  woman. 

The  women  of  the  world  have  never  played 
team-games.  They  are  beginning  to  play  them 
now.  But  hitherto  their  road  to  altruism  and 
the  larger  devotion  to  the  whole  has  been  the 
road  of  the  home.  The  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  family  and  of  the  instinct  feelings 
that  lead  to  domestic  life  shows  that  out  of  the 
love  and  self-sacrifice  of  mothers  for  their  chil- 
dren has  grown  a  large  part  of  the  spirit  of  ser- 
vice which  is  coming  to  be  more  and  more 
characteristic  of  the  best  of  mankind.  Studies 
in  the  development  of  the  higher  moral  ideals 


94  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

of  men,  made  by  Geddes,  Sutherland,  Drum- 
mond,  and  Fiske,  have  endeavored  even  to  show 
that  all  of  altruism  has  grown  out  of  the  love  of 
mothers  for  their  children. 

The  domestic  instincts  of  women  are  closely 
connected  with  the  girl's  manner  of  play.  A 
study  was  made  in  a  mothers'  club  in  regard  to 
the  doll  plays  of  its  members  during  their  child- 
hood. Each  member  wrote  down,  as  com- 
pletely as  her  memory  allowed,  a  history  of  her 
play  with  dolls.  She  recorded  not  merely  the 
material  facts  about  the  dolls,  but  the  various 
ways  in  which  she  had  played  with  them,  their 
domestic  relations,  sicknesses,  mental  and  moral 
characteristics.  She  recorded  also  her  own  feel- 
ings about  the  dolls,  how  they  arose,  how  long 
they  lasted,  how  strong  they  were.  These 
women  also  wrote  out,  as  honestly  as  they  could, 
something  about  the  facility  with  which  they  had 
come  into  the  new  relations  of  motherhood  and 
the  tasks  of  the  home,  their  feelings  regarding 
housework,  its  daily  drudgery,  and  the  care  of 
children.  It  was  the  unanimous  agreement 
of  this  group  of  mothers  that,  on  the  whole, 
those  women  who  during  childhood  had  played 
most  fully  with  their  dolls,  came  into  the  rela- 
tions of  domestic  life  with  a  feeling  of  greater 
ease  and  enjoyment  than  did  those  to  whom 
doll  play  had  been  less  important. 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  95 

This  does  not,  of  course,  mean  that  doll  play 
produces  domestic  feelings,  but  it  does  seem  to 
indicate  that  doll  play  and  domestic  feelings  are 
related.  It  seems  to  show  that  doll  play  is  the 
budding  forth  of  those  same  instincts  which 
show  themselves  later  in  the  domestic  relations 
of  life.  Moreover,  the  doll  play  has  an  effect 
in  establishing  the  domestic  instincts  by  giving 
them  opportunity  for  normal  development  when 
they  first  appear.  The  tender  care  of  the  sick 
doll,  the  making  of  clothes  for  the  doll,  the  study 
of  color  schemes,  the  sense  of  the  significance  of 
social  customs  gained  at  dolls'  parties — in  these 
and  a  hundred  other  ways  the  child  acquires 
by  simple  and  wholesome  development  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  things  which  are  essential  in  life.  It 
does  not  seem  that  this  knowledge  can  be  gained 
so  readily  where  that  preliminary  education 
which  comes  through  doll  play  is  lacking. 

Nor  is  it  merely,  or  chiefly,  a  question  of 
intellectual  knowledge.  It  must  not  be  inferred 
from  anything  that  has  been  said  that  a  woman 
who  has  never  played  with  dolls  cannot,  by  tak- 
ing courses  in  domestic  art  and  domestic  science, 
and  by  faithful  attendance  on  lectures,  learn  to 
do  all  that  a  woman  in  domestic  life  should  do. 
But  our  adaptability  to  the  kind  of  work  that  we 
have  to  do  is  not  chiefly  a  question  of  intellec- 
tual adaptability.     It  is  mainly  an  adjustment 


96  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

of  our  liking  and  disliking,  and  turns  upon  the 
question  of  whether  or  not  we  enjoy  doing  that 
thing.  Do  we  enter  upon  it  with  ease  and  free- 
dom? Does  it  appeal  to  us  as  lovable  in  it- 
self ?  To  establish  the  instinctive  love  of  home 
and  children  so  deeply  that  the  feeling  will  last 
through  the  drudgery  of  the  work  involved, 
this  is  part  of  the  function  of  doll  play. 

So  the  love  of  dolls,  with  all  of  its  wonder- 
fully complex  development,  is  not  merely  a 
pastime.  It  is  one  of  the  main  agencies  for 
developing  the  higher  instinct  feelings  of  girls. 
In  the  kindergarten  and  the  lower  grades  of  the 
elementary  school  there  should  be  doll  plays, 
with  dolls  belonging  to  individual  girls — thus 
giving  them  the  opportunity  of  developing  the 
feelings  toward  home,  shelter,  and  children. 
These  feelings  are  just  now  in  peculiar  danger  of 
perversion  or  lack  of  development,  owing  to  the 
change  in  the  family  home  under  modern  city 
conditions.  Girls  in  tenements  and  apartments 
have  far  less  opportunity  for  the  growth  of 
domestic  feelings  than  is  afforded  to  girls  in 
homes.  Whether  the  life  of  the  adult  is  to  be 
peculiarly  domestic  in  nature  or  not,  these  do- 
mestic feelings  need  development,  since  they  are 
one  of  the  great  roots  of  altruism.  We  cannot 
produce  these  feelings,  but  we  can  give  them  an 
opportunity  to  grow. 


SEX  DIFFERENCES  97 

The  important  question  is  raised  whether  it 
may  not  be  true  that,  in  view  of  the  wide  com- 
petition into  which  women  are  coming  in  the 
modern  world,  it  would  be  wise  for  them  to  have 
the  discipline  afforded  by  athletic  sports.  This 
may  be  true  to  a  certain  extent.  The  question 
whether  young  women  shall  play  competitive 
games  hinges  on  the  question  of  what  woman  is 
going  to  be.  If  the  states  of  mind  involved  in 
basket-ball  are  related  to  the  states  of  mind 
desirable  for  women,  then  basket-ball  is  good. 
Indiscriminate  basket-ball  is  certainly  bad. 
Home  basket-ball  is  good.  The  ground  between 
the  two  is  debatable.  If  we  want  women  who 
can  co-operate,  who  can  compete,  we  shall  not 
find  these  qualities  in  the  scholastic  activities. 
Basket-ball  may  be  a  special  element  in  the 
education  of  the  new  woman. 

During  the  modern  age  men  are  acquiring  the 
virtues  which  have  always  been  predominantly 
feminine — chastity,  love  of  children,  patience, 
loyalty  to  home.  Women,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  beginning  to  be  loyal  to  one  another  in  a 
new  way.  Women's  clubs  all  over  the  civilized 
world  show  that  it  is  possible  for  women  to  work 
successfully  together.  Women  are  beginning 
to  show  a  profound  interest  in  the  community 
and  the  state.  The  virtues  demanded  of  both 
men  and  women  are  getting  to  be  more  nearly 


98  A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

identical  than  they  have  been  in  the  past.  But 
it  does  not  seem  likely  that  the  paths  by  which 
men  and  women  reach  the  final  goal  of  devotion 
to  the  common  good  will  ever  be  the  same  paths. 
The  fundamental  qualities  to  be  cultivated  in  the 
boy  are  those  of  muscular  strength,  the  despis- 
ing of  pain,  driving  straight  to  the  mark,  and 
the  smashing  down  of  obstacles.  The  world 
needs  power  and  the  barbaric  virtues  of  man- 
hood, together  with  the  type  of  group  loyalty 
which  is  based  upon  these  savage  virtues.  It 
needs  also  the  gentler  virtues  of  the  love  of  home, 
kindness,  sympathy,  and  forbearance.  Both 
men  and  women  need  a  share  in  all  these  virtues, 
but  the  order  in  which  they  acquire  them,  and 
the  roads  by  which  they  attain  the  desired  ends 
are  diverse.  What  these  roads  are  is  best  seen 
in  a  study  of  the  spontaneous  plays  of  boys  and 
girls. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  PLAY  OF  ANIMALS 

I  WENT  repeatedly  to  Prospect  Park  to 
study  the  crowd  that  was  watching  three 
young  bears  at  play.  It  was  a  crowd  full 
of  keen  interest  to  see  what  the  little  bears  would 
do,  as  they  rolled  over  one  another,  played  in- 
formal tag,  or  climbed  the  miniature  trees  placed 
in  their  den.  There  is  no  cage  in  the  zoological 
garden  more  constantly  watched  than  the  cage 
which  contains  a  large  group  of  young  foxes, 
bears,  or  members  of  the  cat  tribe.  A  litter  of 
puppies  that  have  become  active  is  exceedingly 
interesting.  A  family  of  young  cats  affords 
entertainment  to  all  who  come. 

The  play  life  of  young  animals  begins  very 
early.  If  by  play  we  mean  those  actions  that 
are  done  instinctively  with  no  immediate  pur- 
pose we  must  include  some  strange  things. 
Lloyd  Morgan  tells  of  the  chirping  of  chicks 
within  the  shell,  before  hatching.  He  says:1 
"Young  moor-hens  chirp  in  some  cases  for 
more  than  forty-eight  hours,  and  ducklings  as 

1  C.  Lloyd  Morgan,  Habit  and  Instinct,  Edward  Arnold,  London  and 
New  York,  1896,  page  31. 

99 


100        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

many  as  twenty -four  hours,  before  they  emerge/' 
This  is  a  common  phenomenon  and  one  which  I 
have  myself  observed  with  a  brood  of  chicks. 
Moreover,  the  fear  caused  by  the  parent  bird's 
warning  begins  to  manifest  itself  even  before 
the  young  are  hatched.  This  prenatal  "peep- 
ing" stops  at  once  if  the  mother  utters  the  warn- 
ing note  even  at  a  considerable  distance. 

Can  instances  of  this  kind  be  rightly  included 
in  the  category  of  play  ?  Do  they  have  the  same 
relation  to  adult  life  that  other  recognized  forms 
of  play  have?  A  consideration  of  some  less 
questioned  forms  of  animal  play  is  the  only 
answer  to  this  question.  The  playing  of  kit- 
tens with  balls  dragged  in  front  of  them,  and  the 
playing  of  dogs  with  bones,  are  instances  of  the 
often-noticed  sportive  activities  of  domestic 
animals. 

A  friend  who  had  a  large  family  of  cats  has 
described  some  of  their  plays  in  detail.  She 
declares  that  they  vary  individually  in  their 
play,  just  as  they  vary  in  other  habits.  But 
their  plays  all  bear  some  relation  to  the  activities 
by  which  they  gain  their  livelihood  as  adults. 
"The  mother  and  grandmother  of  them  all  and 
her  brother  Peter  were  the  most  playful  kittens 
I  have  ever  seen,"  she  says.  "They  used  to  be- 
gin at  daylight,  and  they  had  to  be  shut  up  in 


THE  PLAY  OF  ANJMALS.        101 

the  evening  while  the  chickens  went  to  rqost,.- 
because  they  would  chase  them  so  that  they 
could  not  get  settled.  Even  now  the  old  mother 
plays  sometimes  with  a  string  or  stick,  although 
she  tires  more  quickly.  She  is  the  best  mouser 
we  have  ever  had."  The  connection  here  be- 
tween the  early  play  and  the  later  ability  to 
catch  mice  is  worth  noting. 

Kilter  was  from  a  family  of  mousers.  He 
had  several  original  ways  of  playing.  He  would 
take  a  piece  of  meat  and  worry  it  as  if  it  were  a 
mouse,  while  Xantippe,  a  kitten  from  another 
family  in  the  house,  could  never  be  taught  to 
play  in  that  fashion.  Kilter  used  to  take  a 
small  object  in  his  mouth,  stand  up  on  a  chair  or 
couch,  let  the  plaything  roll  over  the  edge,  and 
then  go  for  it.  He  would  play  that  way  for  half 
an  hour  or  more  at  a  time.  Other  cats  seemed 
less  definite  in  their  play,  and  used  most  of  their 
energy  in  chasing  one  another,  running  about 
very  rapidly,  and  climbing  trees.  They  would 
often  lie  down  in  a  path  and  roll  over  and  over. 

W.  H.  Hudson  has  described  the  play  of  the 
puma,  which  he  characterizes  as  the  'most 
playful  animal  in  existence."  He  says:  "It  is 
at  heart  always  a  kitten,  taking  unmeasured 
delight  in  its  frolics;  and  when,  as  often  happens, 
one  lives  alone  in  the  desert,  it  will  amuse  it- 


102         A,  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

self  by  the  hour  fighting  mock  battles  or  playing 
at  hide-and-seek  with  imaginary  companions. 
I  was  told  by  one  person  who  had  spent  most  of 
his  life  on  the  pampas  that  on  one  occasion  he 
had  seen  four  pumas  playing.  It  was  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  evening  and  a  bright  moon  was 
shining.  He  was  lying  quietly  in  the  shelter 
of  a  rock.  After  a  while  they  began  to  gam- 
bol together  close  to  him,  concealing  them- 
selves from  one  another  among  the  rocks,  just 
as  kittens  do,  and  then  pursuing  one  another."  * 
A  consecutive  record  of  the  development  of 
the  play  life  of  several  individual  animals  has 
been  made  by  Wesley  Mills.  He  has  recorded 
the  day-by-day  growth  of  puppies  and  kittens. 
In  one  litter  of  puppies,  he  observed  the  play 
between  two  puppies  on  the  fifteenth  day,  and 
found  that  paws  and  jaws  both  were  being  used. 
Two  days  later  playing  was  more  common.  He 
adds:  "Slight  movements  of  the  tail  are  noticed 
during  play,  and  there  is  an  obvious  increase  in 
walking  power;  muscular  co-ordinations  of  all 
kinds  are  better  made."  On  the  thirty-third 
day,  when  put  on  the  floor  of  the  kennel,  they  do 
not  manifest  uneasiness,  but  run  about  and  play. 
"One  is  seen  to  run  at  a  slow  rate,  with  his  tail 

1  W.  H.  Hudson,  The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata,  Chapman  &  Hall,  Ltd., 
London,  1892,  page  40. 


THE   PLAY  OF  ANIMALS  103 

up,  and  several  make  quick  starts  backward  and 
forward." 

Mr.  Mills  goes  on  to  say: 

"Much  of  the  play  of  dogs  is  mimic  fighting,  even 
from  the  first,  and  I  have  noted  on  the  twenty- 
seventh  day,  during  a  play,  a  very  brief  but  decided 
exhibition  of  anger,  such  as  may  occasionally  be 
seen  among  mature  dogs,  or  among  boys  of  eight  or 
nine  years  during  rough  play.  The  length  of  time 
which  this  anger  lasts  depends  greatly  on  the  breed 
of  the  dog.  With  terriers  very  early  play  becomes 
serious  at  times,  and  later  there  may  be  so  much 
fighting  that  these  dogs  cannot  with  safety  be  left 
together.  In  few  respects  do  the  different  breeds 
show  their  characteristics  at  so  early  an  age  as  in 
this.  .  .  . 

"Suggestive  action,  especially  in  connection  with 
play,  has  a  very  important  share  in  determining  the 
direction  of  development,  and  the  manner  of  indi- 
vidual the  dog  becomes.  It  is  very  common  from 
the  fortieth  day  onward,  and  greatly  increases  the 
activity  and  hastens  the  progress  of  the  members  of 
a  litter,  as  compared  with  a  single  young  dog  kept 
apart.  It  often,  I  have  noticed,  advances  a  puppy 
of  a  few  months  to  a  place  with  older  dogs;  and  this 
is  sometimes  followed  by  the  best  physical,  as  well 
as  psychic  results,  especially  if  the  young  dog  be 
allowed  to  go  out  to  exercise  with  the  older  ones. 
Suggestive  action  may  also  have  an  evil  effect  on 
young  dogs.  Much  of  the  sheep- worrying  results 
from  it.  .  .  .x 

1  Wesley  Mills,   The  Nature  and  Development  of  Animal  Intelligence, 
The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1908,  pages  122,  123,  133,  159,  163,  216. 


104         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

"A  certain  mongrel  brought  up  alone  seemed  to 
be  very  slow  in  developing  the  play  instinct,  which 
I  attribute  largely  to  his  being  the  sole  puppy  from 
an  early  period,  and  therefore  seeing  no  other  dog 
but  his  dam."  * 

There  is  a  great  difference  in  the  various  in- 
stincts with  reference  to  their  development 
through  play.  Flying,  for  instance,  seems  to  be 
acquired  by  birds  without  teaching,  simply 
through  the  ripening  of  instincts.  William 
James  has  made  a  very  interesting  experiment 
in  this  direction.  Strings  were  tied  around  the 
wings  of  some  members  of  a  nestful  of  birds  and 
they  were  replaced  in  the  nest.  The  other 
birds  were  left  free.  In  the  course  of  time 
the  free  birds  learned  to  fly.  Then  the  strings 
were  removed  from  the  tied  birds  and  it  was 
discovered  that  they  could  fly  equally  well. 
Whether  the  ripening  of  instincts  was  in  itself 
sufficient,  or  whether  the  presence  of  an  example 
was  necessary,  was  of  course  not  decided  by  this 
experiment,  but  it  proved  at  least  that  little 
definite  practice  was  essential. 

In  order  to  become  personally  acquainted 
with  the  consecutive  history  of  the  play  life  of 
certain  animals  I  kept  guinea-pigs,  ferrets,  cats, 

1  Wesley  Mills,  The  Nature  and  Development  of  Animal  Intelligence, 
The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1908,  pages  216,  226,  231. 


THE  PLAY  OF  ANIMALS         105 

dogs,  birds,  chickens,  and  other  animals,  and 
made  notes  of  their  daily  activities.  I  en- 
deavored to  watch  the  development  of  play  in 
the  individual  animal,  to  note  differences  be- 
tween individuals  in  the  same  family,  and  be- 
tween different  types  of  animals.  Inasmuch  as 
this  volume  is  a  study  of  human  play,  it  does 
not  seem  worth  while  to  do  more  than  give  cer- 
tain general  conclusions  with  reference  to  these 
observations. 

An  illuminating  contrast  appears  in  com- 
paring the  play  activities  of  two  such  animals  as 
the  guinea-pig  and  the  dog.  I  watched  a  young 
guinea-pig  from  the  moment  of  birth  to  adult 
life  and  found  no  activities  that  could  be  surely 
described  as  play.  The  young  guinea-pig  ap- 
peared to  be  able  to  care  for  itself  immediately 
after  birth.  Its  reactions  were  relatively  com- 
plete from  the  start.  With  the  dog  it  is  quite 
different.  A  new-born  puppy,  while  not  as  help- 
less as  the  human  baby,  is  quite  dependent  upon 
the  parent.  It  is  unable  to  walk  or  to  care  for 
itself  in  any  way.  The  consecutive  activities 
of  the  puppy  appeared  in  rather  regular  order, 
the  impulse  of  play  being  intense  though  periodic. 
The  general  conclusion  seems  to  be  that  the 
complexity  of  the  play  life  of  all  the  animals  I 
observed  was  a  direct  measure  of  the  intelli- 


106        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

gence  of  the  species  as  a  whole  and  the  individual 
in  particular. 

Different  individuals  show  great  contrasts  in 
their  play  life.  This  relates  to  the  vigor  with 
which  they  play,  the  amount  of  time  they  spend 
in  play,  the  quickness  with  which  they  imitate 
the  mother  and  develop  initiative.  There  is  also 
a  difference  in  species.  The  play  life  of  the  cat 
has  certain  marked  resemblances  to  and  certain 
marked  differences  from  the  play  life  of  the  dog. 
The  dog  is  more  imitative;  the  behavior  of  one 
kitten  has  little  influence  on  the  behavior  of 
another.  This  is  closely  related  to  the  fact  that 
dogs,  when  grown,  hunt  in  packs  and  associate 
much  more  readily  than  do  cats.  The  type  of 
hunting  shown  by  the  cat  in  play,  the  lying-in- 
wait,  the  crouching,  is  very  imperfectly  devel- 
oped in  the  dog.  It  never  becomes  his  peculiar 
manner  of  hunting.  The  dog  is  a  social  animal, 
while  the  cat  is  unsocial  or  even  anti-social. 
All  these  qualities  appear  in  their  play  life. 

Ernest  Thompson  Seton  has  given  several 
accounts  of  the  play  of  wild  foxes.  The  follow- 
ing is  one  of  these  tales,  showing  the  way  in 
which  the  young  learn  through  play  the  ac- 
tivities which  will  be  of  use  later. 

"They  played  about,  basking  in  the  sun,  or  wrest- 
ling with  each  other,  till  a  slight  sound  made  them 


THE  PLAY  OF  ANIMALS         107 

scurry  underground.  Their  alarm  was  needless,  for 
the  cause  of  it  was  their  mother.  She  stepped  from 
the  bushes,  bringing  them  another  hen — number 
seventeen,  as  I  remember.  A  low  call  from  her,  and 
the  little  fellows  came  tumbling  out.  They  rushed 
on  the  hen,  and  tussled  and  fought  with  it  and  each 
other,  while  their  mother,  keeping  a  sharp  eye  out 
for  enemies,  looked  on  with  fond  delight.  .  .  .  The 
base  of  my  tree  was  hidden  in  bushes  and  much 
lower  than  the  knoll  where  the  fox  was.  So  I  could 
come  and  go  at  will  without  scaring  them.  For 
many  days  I  saw  much  of  the  training  of  the  young 
ones.  They  early  learned  to  turn  to  statuettes  at 
any  strange  sound,  and  then  on  hearing  it  again  or 
finding  other  cause  for  fear,  to  run  for  shelter."  1 

Still  another  account  of  young  foxes  describes 
the  way  in  which  they  learned  to  seize  and  de- 
vour woodchucks  in  which  life  wTas  not  yet  en- 
tirely extinct.  They  growled  and  fought  with 
all  the  strength  of  their  baby  jaws,  until  the 
wToodchuck  got  away.  Then  it  was  promptly 
brought  back  by  the  mother,  who  carefully  re- 
frained from  killing  it  herself.  "Again  and 
again  this  rough  sport  went  on  till  one  of  the 
little  ones  wras  badly  bitten,  and  his  squeal  of 
pain  roused  the  mother  to  end  the  woodchuck's 
misery  and  serve  him  up  at  once."  Later  the 
mother  took  the  four  foxes  out  to  hunt  field- 
mice.     They  used  the  tactics  they  had  already 

1  Ernest  Thompson   Seton,   Wild  Animals  I  Have  Known,   Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  New  York,  1900,  page  197. 


108        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

acquired  in  play.  Mr.  Seton  adds:  "When  at 
length  the  eldest  for  the  first  time  in  his  life 
caught  game,  he  quivered  with  excitement  and 
ground  his  pearly,  milk-white  teeth  into  the 
mouse  with  a  rush  of  inborn  savageness."  * 

Much  additional  knowledge  is  needed  before 
our  grasp  of  the  subject  of  animal  play  is  even 
partially  satisfactory.  We  need  more  records 
of  the  play  life  of  single  animals  that  shall  show 
the  amount  and  character  of  their  play.  It  is 
not  sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  these  animals 
occasionally  perform  certain  actions.  We  must 
know  to  what  extent  the  actions  are  common; 
how  much  time  is  spent  on  them.  We  need 
careful  observations  of  the  character  of  this  play, 
and  its  relation  to  the  adult  activities  of  the 
same  species.  Does  the  play  life  of  the  young 
foreshadow  the  life  of  the  adult  animal?  We 
can  trace  some  connection  between  the  two, 
but  for  accurate  and  detailed  conclusions  we 
need  far  more  extended  observations  than  we 
have  now. 

We  need  observations  of  animals  kept  apart 
from  other  animals  of  the  same  kind,  to  see 
how  much  of  their  play  life  is  purely  instinctive 
and  how  much  is  derived  from  others — parents 
or  comrades.     We  need  to  compare  the  develop- 

1  Ibid.,  page  204. 


THE  PLAY  OF  ANIMALS         109 

ment  of  those  kept  by  themselves  and  those 
brought  up  by  their  parents.  We  need  to  ob- 
serve carefully  in  such  animals  as  the  cat  and  the 
dog,  where  it  is  most  easy,  the  part  taken  by  the 
parents  in  teaching  the  young  to  play,  and  the 
apparent  psychic  state  of  the  parent  while  the 
young  are  playing.  Other  problems  may  also 
be  solved  by  careful  observation.  How  much 
exercise  does  a  puppy  get  in  an  hour  of  play? 
What  kind  of  exercise  ?  What  parts  of  his  body 
are  brought  into  activity?  Are  his  senses  in- 
volved much?  What  is  the  nature  of  the 
motor  training  in  his  play?  How  long  will  he 
play?  Does  this  vary  at  different  ages?  The 
kind  of  observation  one  gives  to  animals  ordina- 
rily is  very  different  from  the  kind  given  when 
endeavoring  to  answer  specific  questions  such 
as  these.  We  need  more  data  from  patient, 
unprejudiced  observation. 

The  observations  already  recorded  serve  to 
show  the  wide  extent  of  the  play  life  among 
living  beings.  It  extends  from  creatures  of 
very  low  intelligence  to  man,  from  infancy  to 
old  age.  Several  other  conclusions  may  also 
be  reached  with  more  or  less  definiteness. 

In  so  far  as  the  young  of  animals  have  any 
physical  training  at  all,  or  any  of  the  exercise 
necessary  to  growth,  it  is  secured  through  play. 


110        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

They  have  no  serious  exercises,  undertaken  for 
the  sake  of  muscular  development.  They  go 
out  to  play  because  they  like  it.  By  this  means 
they  obtain  all  the  motor  and  muscular  training 
they  receive. 

The  plays  of  animals  are  related  to  their  race 
habits.  The  instincts  needed  in  later  life  seem 
to  be  expressed  and  developed  in  play.  In  the 
case  of  domesticated  animals,  the  play  life  seems 
to  express  the  instincts  needed  by  the  animal 
in  a  wild  state.  The  complexity  of  the  play  life 
of  any  group  of  young  animals  seems  to  be  a 
measure  of  their  capacity  for  intelligence.  The 
play  of  a  dog,  for  instance,  is  infinitely  more 
complicated  than  that  of  a  fish.  The  plays  of 
dogs  are  more  social  than  those  of  cats,  for  the 
dog  belongs  to  the  pack  family.  His  chief  at- 
tachment is  to  his  kind.  Thus,  in  many  ways, 
the  plays  of  the  young  animals  relate  themselves 
to  the  adult  life  of  their  kind. 

In  a  given  species  the  various  plays  seem  to 
present  a  definitely  co-ordinated  series  of  activi- 
ties, each  one  built  upon  the  preceding  one,  as 
definitely  as  long  division  is  built  upon  addition, 
subtraction,  and  multiplication.  The  order  of 
development  is  from  the  simple  to  the  complex, 
from  the  racially  elementary  to  that  which  is 
recent;  from  the  muscularly  and  neurally  funda- 


THE  PLAY  OF  ANIMALS         111 

mental  to  that  which  is  accessory.  Among 
animals  which  play  social  plays,  these  come  later 
in  time  than  the  individual  plays.  A  dog  learns 
to  manage  himself  before  he  plays  games  of  a 
social  character.  Mastery  of  self  must,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  precede  co-operation. 

It  is  also  evident  that  tradition  and  example 
are  necessary  parts  of  animal  play,  especially 
among  the  more  intelligent  animals.  Both 
dogs  and  cats  want  to  hunt,  but  they  learn  to 
hunt  in  the  precise  way  in  which  the  instinct 
is  shaped  by  the  parents.  Small  terriers  brought 
up  by  a  cat  and  taught  in  the  cat  manner  of 
hunting  have  been  known  to  lie  down  in  front  of 
a  mouse  hole  and  remain  perfectly  motionless, 
waiting  for  a  mouse.  This  is  an  example  of  the 
way  in  which  instinct  is  shaped  by  tradition. 
The  dog  would  not  have  hunted  at  all  if  he  had 
not  possessed  the  instinct,  but  precept  gave  him 
the  method  of  hunting.  Birds  do  not  learn  to 
sing  without  suggestion.  They  do  not  make  the 
characteristic  nests  of  their  species  without 
seeing  the  nests  made.  The  larger  part  of  the 
traditions  necessary  to  adult  activity  are  prac- 
tised in  play  when  the  animal  is  young. 

When  one  watches  an  animal  at  play  now  and 
then,  its  play  seems  random,  just  as  the  play  of 
boys  and  girls  appears  to  one  who  sees  it  now  and 


112         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

then.  But  when  one  observes  more  carefully 
and  sees  the  tremendous  story  of  the  great  se- 
quences of  physical,  social,  and  mental  develop- 
ment suggested  by  the  sequences  of  play,  then 
one  becomes  fascinated  by  its  complexity.  The 
whole  adult  life,  not  only  of  the  individual,  but 
also  of  the  species,  is  closely  akin  to  the  life  of 
play. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS 

IF  it  were  possible  to  make  an  instantaneous 
census  at  nine  o'clock  some  Saturday  eve- 
ning, recording  the  age,  sex,  and  occupation 
of  every  person  in  a  given  district,  it  would  be  of 
the  utmost  value  for  a  study  of  many  problems 
of  modern  life.  I  select  Saturday  evening  because 
it  is  the  time  most  devoted  to  purposes  of  rec- 
reation and  play.  A  census  of  this  kind  would 
show  how  many  people  are  at  that  time  on  the 
streets,  how  many  are  in  saloons,  how  many  are 
in  billiard  halls,  how  many  in  bowling-alleys, 
how  many  in  gymnasiums,  in  dance-halls,  in 
theatres,  at  lectures.  We  should  know  thus 
what  use  is  being  made  of  leisure  time  through- 
out a  given  district,  could  estimate  what  pro- 
portion of  people  is  being  strengthened  and 
rested  by  it,  and  what  proportion  is  degrading 
body  and  soul  through  amusement. 

We  have  a  fairly  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
working  life  of  a  modern  city,  and  in  fact  of  the 
entire  country.  We  know  how  many  people  are 
engaged  in  the  iron  trade,  how  many  are  miners, 

113 


114         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

or  engineers,  and  how  many  are  employed  on 
farms.  We  know  something  concerning  the 
food  and  shelter  obtained  by  various  classes  of 
people.  But  we  have  no  knowledge  of  how  many 
people  dance,  or  how  many  are  interested  in  art 
or  philosophy.  We  have  very  little  idea  of 
what  people  do  when  they  are  pleasing  them- 
selves and  following  their  own  ideas  of  a  "good 
time."  Such  a  census  would  tell  us  more  con- 
cerning the  mental  and  moral  conditions  of  the 
district  investigated  than  almost  any  other 
records  could  give. 

I  tried  at  one  time  to  get  an  estimate  of  the 
amount  of  money  spent  in  America  on  recrea- 
tion. I  secured  a  few  items  like  the  following. 
In  1904  we  spent  nearly  $3,000,000  on  our  great 
baseball  leagues.  This  does  not  include  the 
money  spent  on  smaller  leagues  and  on  balls 
and  bats  for  children's  games.  In  another  year 
over  $10,000,000  were  spent  by  our  men  in 
hunting,  The  amount  spent  incidentally  is  not 
included. 

Yachting  is  only  one  of  the  sports  of  our 
country.  Counting  only  the  large  boats,  there 
were  2,959  vessels  of  all  sizes  and  descriptions. 
Of  these  516  were  steamers,  367  gas-engine  or 
electric-motor  boats,  205  schooners,  136  cat- 
boats.     The  total  value  of  these  pleasure  boats 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  115 

amounted  to  more  than  $40,000,000.  This 
includes  only  the  large,  registered  ships.  The 
tens  of  thousands  of  small  boats  which  the  rest 
of  us  had  were  not  counted,  and  it  is  probable 
that  they  also  represented  over  $40,000,000. 
Play  is  not  an  incidental  activity  of  adult  life. 
It  is  to  be  reckoned  as  one  of  the  great  expenses 
of  a  nation. 

There  were  in  1906  in  New  York  City,  450 
moving-picture  shows  with  an  average  daily 
attendance  at  each  of  1,000  persons.  That 
made  450,000  persons  per  day  taking  part  in 
this  one  form  of  public  amusement.  On  Sun- 
day these  shows  had  an  average  attendance  of 
540,000.  These  plays  are  usually  less  objection- 
able from  a  moral  standpoint  than  many  people 
suppose;  but  the  exhibitions  have  no  value  as 
exercise,  and  the  ventilation  is  so  inadequate 
that  an  hour  spent  in  one  of  these  halls,  with 
the  attendant  risk  of  exposure  to  contagious  dis- 
ease, is  a  positive  menace  to  health. 

New  York  had  in  the  same  year  about  200 
dance-halls,  nearly  all  of  them  connected  with 
saloons.  Dancing  is  in  itself  a  thoroughly 
wholesome  form  of  recreation  and  exercise;  but 
the  moral  environment  of  those  places  of  amuse- 
ment was  such  that  it  is  not  pleasant  to  think 
that  many  of  the  future  mothers  of  American 


116        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

children  were  resorting  to  them  to  satisfy  the 
natural  cravings  for  play  and  companionship. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  mention  the  saloons  and 
other  resorts  in  our  large  cities  which,  under 
the  guise  of  affording  amusement,  are  inflicting 
evil  upon  our  young  people.  Moreover,  few 
of  us  realize  to  what  an  extent  some  of  our 
national  institutions,  such  as  the  Fourth  of 
July,  have  become  sources  of  bodily  harm  be- 
cause of  our  inexcusable  way  of  letting  things 
take  care  of  themselves.  The  intelligent  direc- 
tion which  these  celebrations  require  would  not 
only  rob  them  of  their  capacity  to  injure,  but 
would  vastly  enhance  their  ability  to  do  good. 

Why  do  we  play  ?  That  is  a  question  which 
can  be  finally  considered  only  from  an  ultimate 
philosophical  standpoint.  But  there  are  several 
reasons  which  are  readily  apparent.  In  play 
we  tend  to  balance  the  specialization  of  our  work 
life.  A  man  who  works  almost  exclusively  with 
his  brain,  will  rarely  have  recreation  of  the  same 
type;  and  he  should  not.  He  should  play  golf, 
row,  swim,  run,  shoot,  take  care  of  horses. 
These  plays  tend  to  exercise  otherwise  unused 
parts  of  the  body  and  of  the  mind  as  well;  and 
to  do  this  is  the  usual  tendency  of  play.  Yet 
this  principle  holds  good  only  within  limits. 
The  men   who   work  predominantly   with   the 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  117 

muscular  system  make  use  of  it  also  in  their 
plays.  The  recreations  of  men  who  load  steam- 
ers or  of  those  who  dig  ditches  are  apt  to  be 
wrestling,  dancing,  and  other  forms  of  muscular 
activity.  If  play  were  merely  the  exercise  of 
functions  not  used  in  work,  we  should  have  our 
manual  workers  studying  philosophy  during  their 
hours  of  rest. 

Play  reproduces  the  earlier,  simpler  racial 
reactions.  In  golf  we  have  the  old  feeling  of 
hitting  hard  and  straight;  in  hunting,  the  old 
outdoor  relations.  The  taking  care  of  a  gar- 
den, in  which  so  many  people  find  real  recreation, 
is  a  survival  of  the  simpler,  more  primitive, 
agricultural  activities. 

Most  modern  city  activities  involve  new  ad- 
justments of  our  neuro-muscular  apparatus. 
They  are  much  more  specialized  than  the  tasks 
to  wThich  our  nervous  systems  have  been  accus- 
tomed in  the  past  history  of  the  race.  A  man 
cannot  dictate  letters  for  as  many  hours  as  he 
can  hunt.  In  writing,  he  is  making  new  de- 
mands on  his  nervous  system,  he  is  working  with 
machinery  not  yet  fully  suited  to  its  task. 
When  he  is  fatigued  by  these  recently  acquired 
activities,  he  finds  rest  in  reverting  to  older  and 
more  perfectly  organized  activities.  A  man 
fatigued  by  intellectual  work  may  go  to  bed, 


118        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

but  he  will  probably  get  more  rest  by  walking  a 
long  distance,  by  playing  golf,  working  with 
horses  and  dogs,  by  using  reflexes  that  have  been 
employed  so  long  in  the  life  of  the  race  that 
they  do  not  demand  conscious  attention.  To 
go  out  and  walk  in  the  woods,  to  hear  the  birds, 
to  listen  to  the  babble  of  the  water  and  the  roar 
of  the  storm,  to  prepare  food  at  a  camp  fire — by 
doing  these  old,  old  things  we  restore  to  our- 
selves the  energy  which  we  lose  in  the  exercise 
of  the  recently  acquired  activities. 

The  will  becomes  easily  fatigued  under  the 
strain  of  constant  attention.  When  we  let  go 
of  the  will  and  act  under  the  influence  of  ca- 
price, we  tend  to  revert  to  the  older,  more  ele- 
mentary activities.  And  when  we  have  rested 
well  in  the  summer,  our  wills  are  far  more  able 
to  take  hold  of  work  in  the  fall  than  they  were 
in  the  spring.  For  this  reason  also  our  tempers 
are  probably  better  in  the  fall  than  in  the  spring. 
By  reversion  not  merely  to  muscular  activities 
of  any  kind,  but  to  muscle  relations  and  psychic 
activities  that  are  old,  by  doing  things  that  are 
done  without  consciously  strained  attention,  we 
rest  our  wills. 

The  things  we  do  when  we  are  free  to  do  what 
we  please  are  vitally  related  to  both  health  and 
morality.     Those  nations  which  devoted  their 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  119 

leisure  to  the  recreating  of  health  and  the  build- 
ing up  of  beautiful  bodies  have  tended  to  sur- 
vive, while  those  which  turned  to  dissipation  in 
the  marginal  hours  have  written  for  us  the  his- 
tory of  national  downfall.  A  daily  life  in  which 
there  is  no  opportunity  for  recreation  may  be 
fraught  with  as  much  evil  as  leisure  time  given 
over  to  a  futile  frittering  away  of  energy.  Time 
for  rest  and  recreation  is  an  absolute  necessity 
for  personal  development;  it  is  especially  neces- 
sary under  modern  industrial  conditions,  where 
work  of  a  peculiarly  fatiguing  nature  is  carried 
on.  When  a  man  works  twelve  hours  in  a  steel 
mill,  as  we  are  told  was  the  practice  in  Pittsburg, 
this  condition  is  not  merely  significant  from  the 
standpoint  of  physical  overwork;  it  is  signifi- 
cant also  from  the  standpoint  of  the  family.  A 
man  so  situated  has  neither  strength  nor  time 
for  recreation,  nor  for  pursuing  any  of  those 
ideals  on  which  family  life  is  built. 

The  importance  of  having  some  leisure  time 
is  no  greater  than  that  of  the  proper  use  of  this 
time.  An  investigation  in  England  showed  that 
the  effect  of  shortening  the  day  of  anthracite 
coal-miners  from  eight  to  six  hours  resulted  in  a 
lessened  output  per  hour.  During  their  leisure 
time  the  men  dissipated  so  much  that  they  were 
less  competent  in  working  hours.     The  impor- 


120        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

tant  fact  to  be  noticed  is  not  mainly  the  lessened 
productive  activity,  but  the  reason  for  it,  which 
led  to  the  degeneration  of  the  workers.  It  is 
a  commonly  observed  fact  that  Monday  is  a 
bad  day  in  many  if  not  most  industries,  and  it 
is  bad  because  of  the  unwise  use  made  of  the 
leisure  time  on  Sunday. 

The  recreation  problem  ranks  in  importance 
with  the  labor  and  education  problems.  Char- 
acter is  made  predominantly  during  leisure 
hours.  During  work  or  school  time  our  actions 
are  guided  by  others.  In  recreation  we  do  as 
we  please.  It  is  true  that  honesty  in  business 
and  faithfulness  in  work  are  important  elements 
in  the  making  of  character,  but  the  great  bulk 
of  crime  to-day,  and  the  greatest  part  of  the  de- 
generation during  all  the  eras  of  history,  has  re- 
sulted from  wrong  play  and  recreation,  rather 
than  through  work. 

The  companions  I  choose  during  my  leisure 
are  more  important  with  reference  to  the  de- 
velopment of  character  than  are  my  associates 
during  business  hours.  With  the  latter  I  am 
forced  to  work;  but  if,  after  business  is  over,  I 
choose  men  and  women  of  fine  personality, 
wholesome  desires,  and  good  tastes,  my  choice 
reflects  my  own  self  and  tends  to  produce  good 
character   in   me.     If   I   deliberately   associate 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  121 

with  men  and  women  who  disregard  the  higher 
sanctions  of  life,  it  indicates  and  tends  to  pro- 
duce bad  character.  The  choices  we  make  with 
reference  to  our  leisure  are  fundamental  for 
morality.  In  the  city,  people  have  small  oppor- 
tunity to  make  this  choice  under  wholesome 
conditions. 

A  young  man  of  my  acquaintance  who  came 
to  the  city  went  to  one  of  the  common  dance- 
halls.  I  asked  him  why.  He  said:  "I  am  alone. 
I  wanted  to  see  some  girls.  I  have  no  oppor- 
tunity to  meet  any.  Why  shouldn't  I  go?' 
The  desire  to  see  a  young  woman  is  a  wholesome 
one,  and  it  uplifts  or  degrades,  according  to  the 
character  of  the  girl;  yet  in  New  York  City,  by 
failing  to  make  any  provision  for  this  instinct 
which  is  basic  to  community  life,  we  have  al- 
lowed it  to  be  exploited  commercially  in  saloon 
dance-halls,  so  that  it  acts  almost  wholly  on  the 
side  of  evil  and  immorality. 

Restrictive  measures  are  not  adequate  to  the 
need.  The  attitude  usually  taken  by  the  state 
with  reference  to  public  recreation  is  one  of  re- 
striction only.  We  do  little  toward  providing 
forms  of  play  for  social  life;  only  when  the  sa- 
loon has  grown  to  be  sufficiently  evil  do  we  take 
steps  to  restrict  it.  When  the  theatre  becomes 
sufficiently  immoral,  we  make  restrictions  there 


122        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

also.  When  the  moving-picture  show  becomes 
objectionable,  we  attempt  to  regulate  it.  When 
the  dance-halls  become  too  notoriously  numerous 
as  attachments  to  saloons  and  places  of  immo- 
rality, we  pass  restrictive  measures.  This  is  no 
doubt  necessary,  but  it  cannot  solve  the  problem 
of  adequate  play  for  adults.  It  is  not  enough 
to  tell  the  moving-picture  managers  that  they 
must  not  do  certain  things.  It  would  be  well 
to  tell  them  in  positively  constructive  ways 
what  they  can  do,  for  in  itself  the  moving-pic- 
ture show  affords  opportunity  for  wholesome 
recreation  and  education  as  well. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  dance-hall.  The 
dancing  is  in  itself  not  only  innocent,  but  good 
exercise.  Its  surroundings  are  often  bad.  Con- 
structive measures  are  needed  rather  than  purely 
restrictive  ones.  This  applies  to  any  form  of 
recreation.  It  has  even  happened  that  certain 
playgrounds  have  become  sources  of  evil,  so 
that  measures  of  doing  away  with  them  had  to 
be  enacted.  What  was  needed  was  constructive 
work  which  would  not  only  prevent  those  play- 
grounds from  becoming  headquarters  of  neigh- 
borhood toughs,  but  which  would  make  them 
useful  as  the  headquarters  of  the  children's 
play. 

Financial  problems  are  not  primary  in  these 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  123 

considerations.  The  first  need  is  that  many 
people  shall  give  thought  to  these  matters.  We 
have  enormous  resources  belonging  to  the  state 
which  might  be  used  for  recreation  and  play. 
Our  public  school  property  is  well  equipped  for 
many  kinds  of  recreation.  To  use  our  present 
public  buildings  and  parks  and  other  city  prop- 
erty involves  not  primarily  the  expenditure  of 
money,  but  the  conversion  of  public  opinion 
and  the  establishment  of  social  customs. 

So  far  we  have  been  content  to  devise  means 
which  by  their  nature  are  inadequate.  A  city 
of  40,000  regarded  its  problem  of  the  older 
girls  settled  when  it  established  an  evening 
school  accommodating  80  girls.  Another  city 
of  35,000  established  a  boys'  club  capable  of 
holding  100  boys,  and  the  citizens  felt  that  they 
had  provided  adequate  sources  of  exercise  and 
recreation.  These  are  actual  cases.  New  York 
City  has  spent  millions  for  playgrounds  in  Man- 
hattan, but  in  1906  the  playgrounds  could  ac- 
commodate only  about  7  per  cent  of  the  children 
below  Fourteenth  Street.  We  need  to  face  the 
recreation  problem  fairly  and  deal  with  it  ade- 
quately, not  only  for  children  but  for  adults  as 
well. 

The  problem  of  the  recreation  of  the  adult  is 
not  identical  with  the  problem  of  the  play  of 


124        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

children.  There  is  a  real  difference  also  between 
play  and  recreation.  The  function  of  play  in 
the  life  of  the  individual,  and  the  function  of 
recreation,  are  problems  that  must  be  solved 
before  undertaking  public  provision  for  these 
needs.  The  boy  who  is  playing  football  with  in- 
tensity needs  recreation  as  much  as  does  the 
inventor  who  is  working  intensely  at  his  inven- 
tion. Play  may  be  more  exhausting  than  work, 
because  one  can  play  much  harder  than  one  can 
work.  No  one  would  dream  of  pushing  a  boy 
in  school  as  hard  as  he  pushes  himself  in  a  foot- 
ball game.  If  there  is  any  difference  of  intensity 
between  play  and  work,  the  difference  is  in 
favor  of  play.  Play  is  the  result  of  desire;  for 
that  reason  it  is  often  carried  on  with  more 
vigor  than  is  work. 

Recreation  is  different  in  character.  It  con- 
sists, for  the  adult,  in  reversion  to  the  simpler 
fundamental  activities  acquired  during  child- 
hood. It  means  relaxation  in  contrast  to  the 
child's  outlet  of  energy.  The  intense  adult 
plays  may  be  as  exhausting  as  the  intense  plays 
of  children.  For  the  adult  who  is  working  stren- 
uously in  his  business,  it  is  not  sufficient  that  he 
shall  be  strenuous  in  his  play.  He  has  another 
and  quite  different  need,  the  need  for  recre- 
ation. 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  125 

If  we  define  play  as  doing  that  which  we  want 
to  do,  without  reference  primarily  to  any  ul- 
terior end,  but  simply  for  the  joy  of  the  process, 
then  there  are  many  activities  of  the  adult  in 
addition  to  his  recreation  which  come  in  this 
category.  The  distinction  is  one  of  mental  atti- 
tude, not  of  actual  activities.  The  feeling  of 
choice  and  desire  is  the  determining  element  in 
play. 

Mark  Twain  said  in  regard  to  the  tasks  of 
his  life:  "I  have  not  done  a  day's  work  in  my 
life.  What  I  have  done  I  have  done  because 
it  has  been  play.  If  it  had  been  work  I  should 
not  have  done  it.':  Adrian  Kirk,  in  an  article 
entitled  "Masters  of  their  Craft/'  shows  how 
this  feeling  toward  work  may  animate  men  in 
widely  different  professions.  A  bus-driver,  a 
motor-man,  an  enginer,  a  type-setter,  may  take 
the  play  attitude  toward  his  tasks.  "I'd  rather 
run  a  car  than  eat,"  said  the  motor-man.  "I've 
been  offered  charge  of  the  stable,  but  I'd  rather 
drive,"  was  the  statement  of  the  cabman. 

A  series  of  letters  from  millionaires  attempted 
to  answer  the  question:  "Why  do  men  keep  on 
making  money  when  they  have  enough?' 
There  were  letters  from  Michael  Cudahy,  D.  K. 
Pearsons,  W.  S.  Kimball,  and  a  number  of  others. 
Nearly  all  of  these  men  spoke  of  '  '  the  fascination 


126        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

of  the  game.,;  It  was  not  the  concrete  result 
that  they  wanted;  it  was  the  process  which  at- 
tracted them — the  opportunity  to  go  on,  to  out- 
play, to  outgeneral.  They  had  long  passed  the 
mark  they  set  for  themselves.  But  to  drop  out 
of  the  game !  A  boy  does  not  drop  out  of  a 
game  of  football  when  he  is  fascinated  by  it. 
That  is  the  attitude  of  play. 

The  term  play  is  used  popularly  in  many  dif- 
ferent senses.  It  is  frequently  contrasted  with 
work  and  held  to  cover  a  series  of  activities 
which  are  highly  enjoyable,  but  quite  without 
utility  or  seriousness.  Or  it  is  confounded  with 
recreation,  and  its  usefulness  is  found  solely  as 
a  means  of  relaxation  and  preparation  for  future 
work.  As  a  result  of  this  view  the  plays  of 
children  are  excused  on  the  ground  that  children 
are  not  yet  able  to  do  the  serious  tasks  of  the 
world,  and  may  therefore  be  allowed  to  enjoy 
themselves  without  much  loss.  But  play  is 
not  something  less  serious  than  work.  It  dif- 
fers from  what  we  may  call  work  in  mental  at- 
titude rather  than  in  actual  activity  or  output 
of  energy.  Play,  in  the  scientific  sense,  the  sense 
in  which  we  shall  use  it,  is  the  term  we  give  to  a 
series  of  activities  as  wide  as  the  scope  of  human 
action,  when  those  activities  are  performed  not 
from  external  compulsion,  but  as  an  expression 


THE  PLAY  OF  ADULTS  127 

of  the  self,  as  the  result  of  desire.  In  this  sense 
the  problem  of  play  is  the  problem  of  a  rich  and 
free  life;  the  problem  of  recreation  is  only  one 
of  its  phases. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   PLAY   OF   SUBNORMAL 
CHILDREN 

THE  first  subnormal  boy  of  whom  I  had 
charge  was  already  in  his  teens,  but  he 
could  not  count  to  five.  He  showred  no 
interest  in  anything  that  involved  effort.  He 
could  run  somewhat,  but  he  did  not  like  to  run, 
for  he  considered  it  hard  work.  He  seldom  en- 
gaged in  any  form  of  exercise.  If  I  took  him  by 
the  hand  and  ran  with  him  around  the  gymnas- 
ium track,  he  would  follow  like  a  dog  trotting  be- 
hind me,  but  he  hated  it.  I  told  him  that  if  he 
could  keep  count  of  the  number  of  times  we  went 
around,  we  would  run  only  five  times,  whereas 
if  he  did  not  keep  count,  we  would  run  twice 
five.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  boy  de- 
sired definite  intellectual  power.  He  struggled 
to  count  five,  in  order  that  he  might  not  have  to 
run  more  than  that  number  of  times.  After  a 
while  he  accomplished  it,  and  within  a  week  he 
could  count  up  to  twenty.  His  desire  to  learn 
to  count  called  forth  all  the  latent  power  that 
was  in  him.     That  boy  later  went  to  college. 

128 


PLAY  OF  SUBNORMAL  CHILDREN     129 

He  possessed  a  good  heredity  and  a  good  brain, 
but  there  was  some  defect  of  will  and  initiative 
that  had  to  be  overcome.  After  that  initial  ex- 
perience he  went  forward  rapidly. 

This  boy  was  an  exceptional  case.  Results 
such  as  this  cannot  be  expected  in  the  case 
of  all  feeble-minded  children.  However,  a  study 
of  the  play  of  subnormal  children,  made  by  the 
teacher  of  a  subnormal  class  in  Springfield,  Mas- 
sachusetts, shows  that  lack  of  energy  and  initia- 
tive is  one  of  the  most  marked  characteristics 
of  all  the  actions  of  feeble-minded  children.  She 
divided  the  children  into  low  grade,  middle  grade, 
and  high  grade,  and  described  them  as  follows: 

I.  Low  Grade. — In  visiting  the  playrooms  of  low- 
grade,  feeble-minded  children,  the  dominant  impres- 
sion is  that  of  inactivity.  One  child  among  twenty- 
four  has  been  seen  aimlessly  piling  blocks  on  one 
another,  one  rocking  a  doll,  the  rest  swaying  back 
and  forward,  playing  with  their  fingers  or  feet,  look- 
ing at  each  other  or  staring  out  of  the  window. 

II.  In  a  somewhat  higher  grade  more  activity  is 
seen.  Blocks  are  arranged  apparently  according  to 
some  idea  in  the  mind,  dolls  are  dressed  and  un- 
dressed; there  is  some  individualistic  play  with  toys 
and  dolls.  When  turned  loose  on  a  playground, 
some  children  show  varied  play  activities,  though 
the  majority  stand  about  or  run  with  no  apparent 
object.  Occasionally  a  child  is  seen  swinging  and 
a  few  are  digging  in  the  sand. 


130         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

III.  The  highest  grade  may  be  seen  in  groups 
about  the  playground.  The  casual  observer  may 
think  that  some  interesting  game  is  in  progress,  but, 
upon  nearing  the  group,  nothing  of  the  kind  will  be 
discovered — simply  aimless  talking,  waiting  for  an 
outside  stimulus.  One  more  active  than  the  rest 
may  be  at  the  head  of  a  little  band  whom  he  is  lead- 
ing as  soldiers,  but  few  join  the  ranks  as  they  march 
about.  A  ball  nine  may  be  formed,  but  unless  some 
normal  person  is  present  to  stimulate  and  encourage, 
the  game  falls  flat.  Competitive  sports  seem  to  be 
enjoyed  only  under  the  direction  of  an  attendant. 

Spontaneity  in  play  is  a  chief  lack  of  feeble- 
minded children.  The  lower  the  grade,  the  less 
spontaneous  is  the  play  activity,  and  the  more 
individualistic  is  the  play,  when,  indeed,  there  is 
any  play  at  all.  The  higher  the  grade,  the 
greater  are  the  indications  of  activity,  but  the 
play  is  still  largely  individualistic  and  non- 
competitive unless  there  is  some  outside  stimulus. 

These  findings  are  corroborated  by  some  ob- 
servations recorded  in  a  special  class  in  a  public 
school.  These  children  would  compare  in  ability 
with  the  middle  and  higher  grades  of  the  first 
set  of  observations. 

I.  Low  Grade.  These  children  have  little  activity 
when  set  free  on  the  playground,  other  than  an  aim- 
less running  about.  They  may  try  to  catch  some 
one  who  is  running,  but  they  never  succeed  in  hav- 
ing a  group  game  of  tag.  They  would  not  know 
who  was  "it."     They  never  spin  tops  or  play  with 


PLAY  OF  SUBNORMAL  CHILDREN     131 

marbles,  though  they  may  possess  them.  They 
never  originate  games.  No  girl  in  this  class  has 
failed  to  respond  to  the  attraction  of  a  doll,  but  the 
play  is  confined  to  dressing  and  undressing  it,  hold- 
ing it,  and  walking  with  it.  With  blocks  they  make 
the  very  simplest  forms,  usually  in  imitation  of  some 
other  child. 

Limited  power  of  co-ordination  is  shown  by  in- 
ability to  catch  a  bean  bag  or  ball,  the  forearms  being 
used  in  the  effort  instead  of  the  hands.  When  the 
ball  is  thrown  up  vertically,  the  arms  come  together 
after  the  ball  has  touched  the  floor.  In  every  at- 
tempt to  vary  the  exercise  a  tendency  is  shown  to 
play  according  to  the  old  directions,  not  the  new. 

Rosa,  aged  seven,  when  given  a  ball,  was  unable 
on  entrance  to  follow  directions,  and  for  weeks  sim- 
ply rolled  the  ball  ahead  of  her  on  the  floor,  running 
after  it  like  a  two-year-old  child,  although  others 
about  her  were  playing  in  many  different  ways. 
After  some  months  she  succeeded  in  bounding  and 
catching  it  once  out  of  five  times.  When  given  a 
wooden  ping-pong  bat,  she  was  unable  to  use  it  with 
a  ball. 

II.  High  Grade. — All  suggestions  for  original  play 
come  from  this  group.  Occasionally  a  game  of  tag 
is  organized,  racing  games  are  suggested,  demands 
that  "sides"  be  chosen.  A  few  spin  tops  and  play 
marbles,  but  the  latter  never  as  a  contest. 

Power  of  adaptation  to  new  directions  is  much 
greater,  as  well  as  power  to  co-ordinate.  One  case 
was  noted  of  bounding  the  ball  and  catching  it  in 
time  to  the  rhyme,  "I  asked  my  mother  for  fifty 
cents  to  see  the  elephant  jump  the  fence,"  etc.  Com- 
plicated constructions  are  made  with  blocks. 

Increase  of  mental  activity  is  coexistent  with  in- 
crease of  play  activity. 


132        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

We  are  not  now  considering  the  congenital 
idiots,  nor  the  hopeless  cases  of  feeble-niinded- 
ness,  neither  are  we  referring  particularly  to  the 
cases  of  arrested  development  caused  by  ade- 
noids, defective  vision,  or  defective  senses  of  any 
kind.  Most  of  the  work  that  has  been  done  in 
the  past  has  been  with  reference  to  the  excep- 
tionally low-grade  idiot,  whom  it  is  impossible 
to  educate  to  the  standards  of  normal  life.  But 
such  cases  constitute  only  from  one-half  to  two 
per  cent  of  the  school  population,  whereas  there 
are  from  five  to  eight  per  cent  of  subnormal 
children  who  may  be  converted  to  usefulness  by 
the  establishment  of  right  habits  of  muscular 
conduct,  and  bv  the  stimulation  of  the  will. 

The  plays  of  these  subnormal  children  show, 
then,  certain  very  marked  differences  from  those 
of  normal  children.  The  most  immediately 
noticeable  fact  is  perhaps  the  absence  of  energy. 
There  is  less  energy  of  endurance,  less  energy  of 
each  muscular  contraction,  less  energy  of  effort. 
The  feeble-minded  are  careless.  They  do  not 
care  whether  they  are  'tagged'  or  not.  They 
are  not  warmly  enthusiastic  about  their  play. 
This  condition  does  not  make  for  progress.  The 
play  is  subnormal  in  almost  all  directions,  both 
from  the  physical  and  the  mental  side. 

Most  of  these  children  are  deficient  physically. 


PLAY  OF  SUBNORMAL  CHILDREN     133 

The  skin  of  many  of  them  is  clammy,  showing  a 
lack  of  circulation.  They  exhibit  a  marked  in- 
ability to  use  any  part  of  the  body  with  skill. 
They  have  a  characteristic  shuffling  gait,  which  is 
evidence  of  a  lack  of  precise  co-ordinations,  and 
they  are  usually  lacking  in  muscular  power. 
But  the  most  noticeable  deficiency  is  that  of  will 
power.  Their  desire  to  sit  still  and  do  nothing 
is  perhaps  their  most  marked  differentiation 
from  normal  children.  They  need  an  extraor- 
dinary stimulus  of  some  kind,  imitation  or  com- 
pulsion, to  induce  activity. 

In  the  duration  and  variety  of  their  plays, 
trhese  subnormal  children  are  also  strikingly 
deficient.  They  make  practically  no  progress 
from  month  to  month  and  year  to  year.  They 
may  live  to  adult  life  in  an  institution,  and  unless 
they  are  taught  to  play  other  and  more  complex 
plays,  they  will  do  the  same  things  over  and  over 
again. 

Play  is  thus  seen  to  be  an  indication  of  the  ca- 
pacity for  growth.  The  play  of  the  normal  in- 
dividual goes  on  to  fresher  and  fresher  interests, 
and  when  one  thing  is  mastered,  he  puts  that 
behind  him  for  background  and  acquires  some- 
thing new.  That  means  growth  and  power. 
This  growth  the  feeble-minded  lack.  They  are 
not  only  feeble  in  regard  to  intellectual  pursuits, 


134         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

such  as  reading,  writing  and  arithmetic.  They 
are  feeble  when  it  comes  to  thinking  of  anything 
new  to  do  in  play.  They  do  not  acquire  the 
higher  forms  of  play  developed  by  normal  chil- 
dren. Competitive  play  needs  to  be  taught,  and 
team  play  seems  almost  completely  beyond  their 
capacity. 

Subnormal  children  also  differ  from  normal 
children  in  the  place  which  tradition  and  imita- 
tion has  in  their  plays.  There  are  two  factors 
which  make  play:  the  desire,  or  instinct,  which 
gives  the  driving  motive;  and  the  tradition 
which  decides  what  form  the  play  shall  take. 
Feeble-minded  children  lack  not  only  the  spon- 
taneous impulse  to  play;  they  also  possess  to  a 
very  much  lessened  degree  than  the  normal  child 
the  power  of  carrying  social  tradition.  If 
feeble-minded  children  are  taught  some  interest- 
ing games  adapted  to  their  development,  and 
are  then  put  with  other  children  who  have  not 
been  so  taught,  the  children  who  know  the 
games  will  not  propagate  them.  Among  nor- 
mal children  a  good  game  spreads  from  child  to 
child.  But  subnormal  children  must  be  taught 
individually  and  with  great  care. 

The  physical  movements  which  adults  make 
are  imitated  unconsciously  by  most  children 
as  soon  as  they  reach  the  age  for  those  move- 


PLAY  OF  SUBNORMAL  CHILDREN     135 

merits.  On  the  other  hand,  to  teach  a  feeble- 
minded boy  to  use  a  hammer  requires  very 
minute  pedagogical  steps.  To  teach  the  feeble 
minded  girl  to  cut  out  a  pattern,  to  use  scissors, 
to  follow  a  line,  involves  great  patience  and 
stages  of  teaching  which  the  normal  girl  seems 
almost  to  omit  entirely,  so  unconsciously  does 
she  pass  through  them.  The  power  of  imitation 
in  subnormal  children  is  very  low. 

Lack  of  spontaneous  effort,  of  desire,  of  va- 
riety, and  of  the  unconscious  imitation  by  which 
normal  children  learn  so  many  muscular  co-or- 
dinations— these  seem  to  be  the  chief  deficiencies 
of  subnormal  individuals,  in  play  and  in  all  other 
activities.  The  way  of  development,  then,  lies 
in  the  acquiring  of  these  motor  accomplish- 
ments. The  treatment  of  the  feeble-minded 
before  the  days  of  Seguin  was  primarily  directed 
to  the  intelligence,  and  it  failed.  Seguin  worked 
on  the  hand  training  of  the  idiot;  he  laid  the 
foundation  for  all  that  has  been  done  since.  He 
taught  the  subnormal  child  the  same  muscular 
contractions  that  are  made  unconsciously  by 
the  normal  child. 

The  use  of  rhythmical  exercises  has  been  found 
to  be  of  great  benefit  in  the  education  of  sub- 
normal children.  In  the  Massachusetts  Insti- 
tute for  the  Feeble-minded,  Doctor  Fernald  has 


136         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

utilized  rhythm  with  reference  to  muscular 
labor.  He  says  that  if  he  can  get  boys  to  shovel 
or  hammer,  using  heavy  sledges,  and  with  many 
working  in  unison,  they  will  do  several  times  as 
much  work  through  the  effect  of  rhythm  as 
they  would  do  if  they  were  in  a  position  which 
required  them  constantly  to  make  a  choice. 
They  can  thus  develop  the  needed  muscular  co- 
ordinations more  surely  and  with  greater  ease. 

Physical  education,  especially  through  play, 
is  the  best  means  for  the  education  of  the  feeble- 
minded. The  first  step  is  to  create  a  desire  to 
run,  to  throw,  to  stand  up  straight,  to  do  some- 
thing. This  desire  can  be  aroused  more  easily 
in  connection  with  the  oldest,  most  fundamental 
human  reactions,  than  in  any  other  way.  The 
folk-dance  is  particularly  effective  in  this  direc- 
tion, because  of  the  rhythmic  actions  involved. 
Another  good  method  of  training  is  to  give  exer- 
cise combined  with  some  game  or  story.  A 
teacher  who  had  blocks  of  wrood  on  the  floor  told 
the  children  to  step  from  one  to  the  other  for 
"if  they  missed  one  of  the  stepping-stones  in 
the  brook,  they  would  get  w^et."  In  this  way 
she  succeeded  in  arousing  interest  and  in  teach- 
ing some  of  the  fundamental  co-ordinations  nec- 
essary for  further  development. 

I  once  had  charge  of  a  little  feeble-minded  girl 


PLAY  OF  SUBNORMAL  CHILDREN     137 

whose  attention  I  could  not  hold.  Without 
attention,  education  is,  of  course,  impossible. 
At  last  I  hit  upon  the  expedient  of  making  her 
stand  with  one  foot  close  in  front  of  the  other. 
Then  if  she  did  not  give  attention  she  would  fall. 
From  that  time  on  she  made  progress.  Physical 
education,  given  in  connection  with  play,  is  the 
most  direct  method  to  this  end. 

There  is  a  class  of  children  who  can  by  no 
means  be  classed  as  feeble-minded,  but  in  whose 
play  abnormal  conditions  of  life  have  produced 
some  of  the  same  characteristics  we  have  been 
discussing.  These  are  the  children  in  institu- 
tions. Miss  Florence  L.  Lattimore  has  written 
of  them: 

I  have  seen  children  at  play  in  about  one  hundred 
institutions,  and,  beyond  the  use  of  toys,  I  have 
never  seen  any  game  but  tag.  Repeatedly  I  have 
been  told  by  caretakers  that  "they  like  to  stand 
around  and  watch  each  other."  In  photographing 
the  so-called  playground  of  one  of  these  institutions, 
I  tried  to  take  a  picture  of  the  children  at  play;  but 
they  did  not  know  how  to  pose  for  me,  and  they  had 
never  been  taught  even  how  to  play  tag.  They 
just  ran  around  and  pushed  one  another. 

In  one  institution  some  fifty  little  boys  are  daily 
sent  to  a  cement-floored  basement  at  playtime. 
There  is  no  supervision.  The  president  of  the  insti- 
tution told  me  that  they  did  not  seem  to  know  what 
to   do   with   themselves,   and   dug   the   putty   from 


138         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

around  every  one  of  the  panes  of  glass  in  the  win- 
dows. They  were  reprimanded  for  this  and  told  to 
play.  Not  knowing  how,  they  scooped  out  little 
crescents  of  cement  from  the  floor  in  a  sort  of  pat- 
tern, and  when  they  were  reprimanded  for  this,  they 
sat  around  in  a  kind  of  limp  despair.  The  children 
tell  me  that  they  "don't  like  to  play  because  of  the 
bullies."  In  other  words,  competition  is  not  fair  in 
their  undirected  play,  and  the  children  who  do  not 
like  free  fights  keep  out  of  the  playtime  activities. 
I  have  known  this  to  be  true  of  institution  after  in- 
stitution. The  apparent  contentment  of  these  chil- 
dren, their  lassitude  and  calm,  is  commonly  mistaken 
for  a  satisfied  play  instinct.  Close  study  of  these 
little  inmates  reveals  that  lack  of  bodily  tone,  of 
motivation,  and  opportunity  to  learn  to  play  are 
the  chief  factors  in  this  group  passivity. 


This  quotation  is  important  as  showing  the 
subnormal  state  into  which  otherwise  normal 
children  may  be  thrown  by  lack  of  proper  op- 
portunity and  traditions  for  play.  The  lack  of 
motivation,  of  ability  to  carry  on  the  higher 
forms  of  team  play,  are  characteristic  also  of 
feeble-minded  children.  Miss  Sadie  American 
says  of  institution  children:  "It  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  inject  into  them,  not  only  the  de- 
sire to  play,  but  the  habit  of  play."  She  quotes 
Mr.  Lowenstein  of  the  Hebrew  Orphan  Asylum 
in  New  York  as  saying  that  while  there  is  plenty 
of  outdoor  space  for  the  children  of  that  institu- 


PLAY  OF  SUBNORMAL  CHILDREN     139 

tion,  they  stand  about  watching  those  who  have 
already  been  taught  and  they  have  to  be  led  into 
the  play  before  they  will  indulge  in  it. 

A  model  asylum  visited  by  Miss  Eugenie 
Macrum,  of  Pittsburg,  revealed  an  identical 
condition.  It  was  an  invigorating  winter  after- 
noon, but  not  a  child  had  been  outdoors.  The 
sisters  felt  too  cold  to  leave  the  house  and  had 
taken  it  for  granted  that  none  of  the  children 
would  care  to  go  out.  No  child  had  the  enter- 
prise to  propose  an  excursion  into  the  open. 
The  asylum  grounds  were  large  and  situated  in 
a  beautiful  neighborhood.  A  snowball  fight 
would  no  doubt  have  been  cheerfully  permitted, 
but  there  was  no  one  to  take  the  initiative. 

"Play  expresses  spiritual  as  well  as  physical 
exuberance,"  says  Mrs.  Harriet  Hickox  Heller, 
of  the  Douglas  County  Detention  School,  in 
Nebraska.  "In  the  sick,  exhausted,  imbecile, 
abnormal  child,  play  decreases  in  a  suggestive 
ratio.  In  proportion  as  they  are  abnormal, 
these  children  seem  to  lose  the  power  of  exer- 
cising the  self-expressing,  creative  play.  With- 
out the  experience  of  play  their  chances  of  nor- 
mal maturity  are  too  meager  to  risk.  They  must 
be  taught  to  play." 

To  some  extent  this  same  lack  of  spontaneity 
and  play  initiative  is  found  in  large  numbers  of 


140        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

city  children.  Miss  American  describes  a  game 
called  "Long  Branch"  which  some  little  girls 
were  playing  on  a  city  sidewalk.  It  was  a  dead- 
ening occupation,  consisting  merely  in  seeing 
who  could  flip  a  stone  farthest.  "Those  children 
should  have  been  playing  hop-scotch  or  pris- 
oner's base;  but  the  stimulus  to  such  play  had 
been  destroyed  through  lack  of  use.'2  Long 
lines  of  children  used  to  stand  in  the  play 
grounds  of  Chicago  waiting  for  an  opportunity 
to  swing,  without  sufficient  knowledge  or  initia- 
tive to  invent  any  other  amusement  than  the 
one  which  was  already  over-occupied.  A  clever 
play  leader  started  a  game  and  relieved  the  con- 
gestion. 

The  play  of  feeble-minded  children  is  charac- 
terized by  lack  of  initiative,  of  desire,  of  energy, 
of  variety,  of  social  tradition.  These  same  de- 
ficiencies are  making  an  appearance  in  some  un- 
looked-for places.  If  it  be  true,  as  it  has  been 
stated,  that  many  of  the  children  of  New  York 
do  not  know  how  to  play,  it  is  a  fact  startlingly 
worth  considering  in  connection  with  the  rela- 
tion which  the  play  stimulus  and  play  tradition 
sustain  relative  to  normal  development. 


CHAPTER   XI 

PLAY  PROGRESSION 

A  MOST  attractive  theory  was  put  for- 
ward some  years  ago.  It  was  called 
the  " Culture-epoch'  theory.  It  held 
that  children  went  through  the  same  epochs  that 
are  represented  by  the  different  tribes  and  na- 
tions in  the  development  from  savagery  to  civi- 
lized life.  There  was  first  the  stage  of  migration 
and  wandering,  when  the  race  lived  in  families 
and  went  from  place  to  place;  later  there  was 
the  agricultural  stage.  It  was  maintained  that 
these  instinct  feelings  constitute  great  psychic 
zones  through  which  the  race  passed  and  out  of 
which  it  drew  various  lessons.  Therefore,  the 
individual  also  must  go  through  zones  of  this 
kind,  and  school  life  should  be  adjusted  accord- 
ingly. In  the  nomadic  stage  children  should 
have  the  literature  which  developed  in  the  no- 
madic age,  and  their  art  should  be  related  to  the 
kind  of  art  developed  then.  Their  interest  in 
plants  and  animals  should  be  centred  in  the 
plants  and  animals  known  by  the  race  in  that 
period;  the  history  studied  should  be  that  of  the 
nomadic  stage. 

141 


142         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

Let  us  examine  this  theory  in  the  light  of  ob- 
served sequences  in  children's  spontaneous  plays. 
When  does  the  hunting  instinct  begin  in  the 
boy  ?  The  exact  time  has  not  been  determined, 
but  we  know  that  a  baby  under  two  years  of  age 
enjoys  running  away  and  being  pursued.  He 
also  enjoys  trying  to  catch  some  one  else.  Nor 
can  it  be  shown  that  the  hunting  instinct  ever 
ceases.  There  is  no  age  when  men  are  too  old  to 
enjoy  fishing.  This  does  not  mean  that  all  men 
enjoy  fishing,  but  if  a  man  has  enjoyed  it  as  a 
boy,  he  does  not  lose  interest  in  fishing  while  he 
is  alive  and  well. 

The  other  day  I  saw  two  men,  one  about  forty 
and  the  other  seventy-five  years  old,  coming 
in  from  the  river.  They  had  a  basket  about  ten 
inches  long,  seven  inches  high,  and  eight  inches 
wide,  in  which  they  had  brought  their  lunch  and 
fishing-tackle.  These  men  had  been  fishing  all 
day.  They  had  eaten  their  lunch  and  used  up 
their  bait,  and  had  about  fifty  fish.  These  fifty 
fish  did  not  weigh  as  much  or  take  up  as  much 
space  as  the  lunch  and  bait  had  taken.  They 
had  secured  many  fish  too  small  to  eat,  and  had 
spent  a  day  in  doing  it.  But  they  were  happy. 
They  were  not  too  old  to  have  the  keenest  enjoy- 
ment in  fishing. 

There  is  no  need  of  going  into  an  extended 


PLAY  PROCxRESSION  143 

discussion  of  the  way  in  which  the  hunting 
feeling,  in  a  modified  form,  enters  into  the  com- 
petition of  business  and  professional  life.  Most 
of  the  intensity  of  the  business  world  is  built  on 
these  old  instincts  of  fighting  and  hunting.  Men 
stay  in  business  for  the  fascination  of  the  game 
long  after  the  main  reason  for  working  has  dis- 
appeared. But  leaving  this  out  of  account, 
and  keeping  to  the  simpler  level  of  hunting  as 
hunting,  there  is  no  definite  age  at  which  a  man 
ceases  to  want  to  hunt.  He  may  acquire  new 
feelings  which  keep  him  from  hunting,  feelings 
of  sympathy  for  the  animals,  but  the  hunt- 
ing instinct  never  dies.  He  never  becomes  too 
old  or  loses  the  early  interest.  The  hunting 
"epoch"  extends  from  birth  until  death. 

The  shelter  interest  is  equally  permanent. 
Little  children  three  years  old  enjoy  playing 
house.  This  play  corresponds  to  deep  feelings 
within  them.  Boys  and  girls  in  their  teens  love 
their  shacks  in  the  woods  and  the  little  houses 
they  have  built  in  the  yard,  and  the  trees  they 
have  for  their  own.  Young  married  people  have 
the  same  feeling  very  strongly  when  they  move 
into  a  new  home,  a  permanent  shelter  which  is 
theirs.  Old  married  people  with  families  experi- 
ence these  shelter  feelings  when  they  return  to 
the  old  home.     Grandparents  have  told  me  that 


144        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

to  go  back  to  the  place  of  their  childhood  and  to 
see  their  children  and  children's  children  around 
them  arouses  profound  feelings  of  the  shelter 
type.  There  is  no  shelter  epoch  except  the  epoch 
of  human  life. 

There  is  no  epoch  in  friendship.  There  are, 
indeed,  times  when  friendship  grows  fastest. 
Middle  life  is  somewhat  of  a  fearsome  period 
for  one  thing  because  new  human  relationships 
are  established  then  with  much  greater  difficulty 
than  in  the  teens.  The  friends  acquired  during 
the  twenties,  who  have  kept  together  enough  to 
share  life's  experiences,  remain  closer  friends 
than  most  people  who  come  together  later  in 
life.  The  friendship  feeling  does  not  come  in 
one  particular  period  and  then  go  out  of  ex- 
istence. 

The  same  is  true  of  other  interests.  The 
child  who  has  loved  dogs  and  cats,  cows  and 
chickens,  horses  and  sheep  and  ducks  does  not 
lose  this  interest  in  mature  years.  The  relation- 
ships to  the  natural  world  that  come  through 
these  associations  do  not  die.  The  love  of 
plants  and  the  interest  in  gardens  are  not  con- 
fined to  a  single  epoch.  Those  whose  hearts 
have  been  thrilled  by  the  beauties  of  the  woods, 
the  lights  and  the  shadows,  the  flash  of  the  sun 
on  the  water,  do  not  pass  out  of  this  stage. 


PLAY  PROGRESSION  145 

There  may  be  times  when  the  soul  can  respond 
more  vividly  than  at  other  times,  but  there  is 
no  epoch  in  the  love  of  nature. 

A  child  does  not  go  through  an  "Indian  stage." 
I  have  seen  boys  play  Indian  with  great  inten- 
sity. They  had  their  tepees  and  bows  and  ar- 
rows, their  councils  and  Indian  fights.  But  the 
next  hour  they  might  be  playing  policeman,  or 
fire-engine,  using  a  wholly  different  set  of  in- 
terests, those  of  a  culture  period  a  thousand 
years  removed  from  their  first  play.  No  theory 
could  well  have  been  elaborated  that  was  farther 
from  the  observed  facts  of  human  life  than  the 
culture-epoch  theory.  This  does  not  mean  that 
there  is  no  order  in  physical,  mental,  moral,  and 
social  development.  The  more  complicated 
must  always  be  built  on  the  simple.  But  to  put 
these  instincts  in  strata  and  say:  "This  is  the 
time  for  the  hunting  instinct  and  then  that  goes 
out;  this  is  the  time  for  the  property  instinct 
and  then  that  goes  out" — is  false  from  all  we 
know  of  children's  plays. 

Child  nature  has  no  culture  epochs  of  this 
kind.  Interests  in  different  plays  come,  some- 
times together,  sometimes  one  ahead,  sometimes 
the  other  ahead.  There  is  no  absolute  order  in 
the  eruption  of  these  great  passionate  lifelong 
feelings.     Under  the  stimulus  of  the  hunting  feel- 


146         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

ing  a  little  boy  will  run  about;  under  the  stimu- 
lus of  the  same  feeling  he  will  play  tag,  and  the 
tag  will  grow  more  complicated  as  he  grows  older. 
Later  he  will  play  baseball  from  the  same  im- 
pulse, and  still  later  he  may  go  into  scientific 
research.  The  feeling  which  dominates  and 
guides  his  life  furnishes  a  constant  spring  of 
motive,  taking  on  new  forms  of  activity  with 
ever-increasing  complexity. 

There  is  indeed  a  play  progression  related 
not  to  the  acquisition  of  new  fundamental  in- 
stincts, but  to  the  physical  and  mental  develop- 
ment of  the  individual.  A  baby  does  not  make 
the  same  complicated  movements  that  a  boy  of 
ten  makes.  There  is  a  close  relation  between 
the  particular  games  in  which  the  various  in- 
stincts express  themselves  and  the  development 
of  the  heart,  lungs,  muscles,  and  especially  of 
the  nervous  system.  Boys  do  not  play  running 
games  before  the  heart  has  reached  a  certain 
balance.  Games  demanding  endurance  do  not 
normally  occur  before  the  pubertal  develop- 
ment of  the  heart  and  arteries  has  occurred. 
There  is  a  relation  from  infancy  to  adult  life 
between  the  games  that  are  played  and  the  part 
of  the  individual  that  is  growing. 

At  about  the  age  of  seven  or  eight  the  boy 
wants  to  play  marbles.     He  does  not  say:   "My 


PLAY  PROGRESSION  147 

motor  areas  are  now  ripening  and  I  will  help 
them  in  their  development  by  using  my  fingers." 
But  that  is  precisely  what  he  is  doing  without 
knowing  it.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  other 
games.  They  develop  in  successive  years  in 
complexity,  in  intensity,  in  rapidity.  They  are 
suited  to  the  growing  needs  of  the  individual. 

The  chart  entitled  "Anglo-Saxon  Play"1  will 
serve  for  a  general  outline  of  play  progression. 
Nothing  exact  is  indicated  by  this  diagram. 
There  is  no  real  division  between  children  of  six 
and  those  of  seven,  or  between  children  of  thir- 
teen and  fourteen.  Moreover,  there  are  always 
individual  variations.  But  on  the  whole  there 
is  a  great  distinction  between  the  plays  that  are 
most  prominent  between  birth  and  the  age  of 
seven,  and  those  prominent  between  the  years  of 
seven  and  twelve.  There  is  a  similar  distinc- 
tion with  reference  to  the  games  played  in  the 
teens.  The  difference  is  chiefly  one  of  emphasis; 
some  boys  and  girls  never  reach  the  third  stage, 
some  never  pass  beyond  the  first.  Yet  there  is 
a  general  progression ;  the  later  games  are  based 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case  upon  the  earlier. 
A  boy  cannot  jump  before  he  has  learned  to 
walk;  he  cannot  throw  until  he  has  learned  to 
drop  objects  and  pick  them  up.     As  children  be- 

*See  page  154. 


148         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

come  more  skillful  in  the  use  of  certain  muscle 
combinations,  they  go  on  to  more  complex  plays. 

The  direction  of  the  curved  lines  in  the  chart 
indicates  that  these  interests  of  life  are  per- 
manent. At  any  age  all  the  previous  interests 
still  survive.  Other  more  complex  activities 
come  into  the  child's  life  and  push  the  ele- 
mentary plays  into  the  background;  later  still 
larger  interests  are  built  upon  the  earlier,  with 
more  complex  ethical  and  social  relations.  But 
when  we  take  time  for  the  earlier  activities, 
we  still  discover  joy  in  doing  them.  I  presume 
that  it  is  still  interesting  to  us  to  sit  on  a  beach 
and  let  the  fine  sand  trickle  through  our  fin- 
gers, to  make  little  piles  of  it,  to  dig  gardens  and 
walks  of  sand.  We  do  not  do  it  as  often  as  we 
did  when  we  were  children,  for  more  interesting 
matters  have  claimed  our  attention.  We  have 
more  capacity  for  work  and  pleasure  than  we 
had  then;  we  revert  to  these  simple  pleasures 
only  in  times  of  fatigue  when  we  wish  to  rest. 
Then  we  lay  aside  the  more  recently  developed, 
more  exhausting  activities,  because  they  are 
more  complex  and  utilize  more  of  our  entire 
personality. 

The  first  group  of  plays  indicated  in  the  chart 
is  individualistic.  These  plays  relate  to  control 
of  the  body.     The  child  learns  to  use  his  hands, 


PLAY  PROGRESSION  149 

to  run,  to  balance  himself,  to  throw,  to  jump. 
The  complex  arm  movements  of  later  games  are 
built  on  these  earlier  attainments.  There  is  a 
tremendous  joy  in  these  early  attainments.  I 
remember  watching  a  little  boy  of  five  years 
learning  to  throw.  He  showed  great  excitement 
as  he  changed  from  putting,  which  is  the  throw 
of  children  and  most  women,  to  the  man's  throw, 
in  which  the  weight  of  the  whole  body  goes  into 
the  movement.  He  had  accomplished  a  new 
thing.  A  great  part  of  the  joy  of  early  childhood 
is  related  to  this  progressive  mastery  of  self  and 
of  the  environment. 

From  self-mastery  the  boy  goes  on  to  com- 
petition with  others.  Little  children  do  not 
care  to  compete,  and  should  never  be  stimulated 
by  competition.  They  have  not  learned  self- 
mastery  and  self-control.  Unfair  play  is  partly 
traceable  to  engaging  in  competition  before  self- 
control  has  been  attained.  With  self-mastery 
comes  the  desire  to  master  others,  to  compete  in 
running,  at  marbles,  at  tag,  in  swimming.  The 
intensity  with  which  boys  pursue  the  running, 
jumping,  throwing,  striking  games,  such  as 
"Duck  on  the  rock"  and  "One  old  cat,"  indicates 
the  power  of  the  instinct  feelings  that  hold  them. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  games  themselves  to 
account  for  their  tremendous  grip.     A  boy  will 


150         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

learn  to  throw  in  "One  old  cat"  as  he  never 
learns  to  throw  for  the  pure  joy  of  throwing. 
He  gains  a  new  kind  of  self-mastery  through  this 
competition.  His  chief  object,  however,  is  to 
master  the  other  boy. 

In  the  third  group,  the  elements  of  self-mas- 
tery and  competition  still  remain,  but  something 
new  is  added,  team  loyalty.  Many  boys  never 
reach  the  third  stage.  The  essence  of  these 
games  is  self-sacrifice  for  the  group,  which  is  the 
great  masculine  source  of  altruism.  The  boy 
who  hustles  for  himself  and  not  for  his  gang  is 
the  boy  who  cannot  play  these  games.  He  is 
also  the  boy  who  does  not  develop  the  wider 
loyalty  of  manhood.  A  boy  begins  by  being 
loyal  to  one  or  two  friends,  then  to  a  dozen, 
then  to  his  school,  and  finally  to  his  commu- 
nity. 

There  are  other  relations  between  plays  be- 
sides that  of  progression  from  the  simple  to  the 
complex.  No  one  who  has  noticed  plays  at  all 
has  failed  to  observe  the  seasonal  rotation  of 
games.  The  advent  of  spring  is  more  surely 
marked  by  the  games  of  marbles  played  on  the 
street  than  by  the  coming  of  bluebirds  and  rob- 
ins. The  birds  may  fail,  for  there  may  be  a 
late  spring.  But  I  have  seen  marbles  played 
in  the  snow  in  Springfield,  because  it  was  marble 


PLAY  PROGRESSION  151 

time.  The  season  had  come,  even  if  the  snow 
had  not  gone. 

All  over  the  world  the  plays  of  children  rotate 
with  great  regularity.  This  is  more  true  in  a 
stable  community  than  in  a  new  town.  In  an 
old  English  village,  where  people  are  living  as 
they  have  lived  for  generations,  the  plays  come 
around  with  perfect  precision.  In  Japan  the 
sequence  of  plays  is  most  regular.  Even  in  our 
own  communities  the  venders  of  implements  for 
children's  play  know  what  stock  to  order  for 
every  season.  I  secured  records  of  the  plays 
of  11,000  children  in  a  western  city  at  one  time, 
and  classified  them.  The  record  showed  that 
while  there  are  many  plays  engaged  in  at  ran- 
dom, the  larger  games  are  seasonal.  Tag,  hide- 
and-seek,  marbles,  and  ball  are  among  these 
games.  Interest  in  dolls  does  not  rotate,  but 
the  things  which  are  done  with  dolls  rotate. 

This  rotation  of  plays  is  not  the  same  in  any 
two  cities  or  countries  I  have  studied.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  main  kites  are  flown  during  the 
time  of  the  year  in  which  there  is  most  wind,  and 
marbles  are  usually  played  when  the  ground  is 
suitable.  But  if  there  are  several  periods  of  high 
wind,  kites  will  be  flown  in  only  one  of  them, 
and  this  particular  time  will  vary  in  different 
communities.     Except    for    those    plays    which 


152        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

are  wholly  dependent  on  the  weather,  as  skat- 
ing, sliding  downhill  or  snowballing,  games  may 
come  at  different  times  of  the  year  in  different 
cities,  but  in  the  same  city  the  rotation  is  a  fixed 
one. 

This  seems  to  show  that  it  is  not  the  order  of  rota- 
tion  which  is  significant,  but  the  fact  of  rotation. 
There  is  not  the  same  order  of  games  in  New 
York,  Chicago,  and  Tokio,  but  there  is  the  same 
fact  of  a  seasonal  change.  One  play  does  not  of 
itself  lead  into  another  play,  or  the  order  of  rota- 
tion would  be  stable.  This  fact  that  one  play 
comes  to  a  natural  conclusion,  and  that  there  is 
then  a  demand  for  another  play — just  what 
other  play  is  not  universally  determined — bears 
an  interesting  relation  to  growth. 

Growth  proceeds  by  pulses,  not  in  a  straight 
line.  We  do  not  grow  in  height  a  little  every  day 
until  our  full  stature  is  secured.  We  grow 
for  certain  weeks  and  then  there  will  be  weeks 
in  which  we  do  not  grow  in  height,  but  rather  in 
breadth.  We  tend  to  grow  in  height  in  the 
spring,  and  in  weight  in  the  fall.  Even  during 
successive  years  there  is  no  uniformity  of  growth. 
In  certain  years,  perhaps  from  nine  to  eleven 
or  twelve,  the  child  will  grow  only  about  an  inch 
a  year;  and  then  in  a  succeeding  year  he  may 
add  three,  four,  five,  or  six  inches  to  his  stature. 


PLAY  PROGRESSION  153 

Growth  in  the  ability  to  acquire  a  language  is 
in  pulses.  I  have  the  records  of  the  words  used 
by  all  of  my  own  children  up  to  the  age  of  two. 
In  two  or  three  days  the  child  may  learn  fifteen 
to  twenty  new  words,  and  then  for  a  whole 
month  he  may  not  learn  any  more.  He  may 
even  forget  the  words  he  has  learned.  There 
are  pulses  in  vital  power  and  in  every  form  of 
enthusiasm.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  sea- 
sonal rotation  of  plays. 

These  pulses  do  not  coincide  in  all  individuals. 
If  I  should  measure  the  growth  in  height  of 
11,000  children  up  to  the  age  of  twelve  years 
and  take  an  average,  I  should  have  a  steady 
curve.  But  no  child  grows  by  a  curve  of  that 
kind.  It  is  the  average,  but  it  is  false  to  every 
individual  child  that  contributes  to  that  aver- 
age. The  length  and  appearance  of  the  pulses 
of  interest  vary  with  different  ages  and  different 
individuals. 

There  is,  then,  a  progression  in  play,  from  sim- 
ple to  complex  co-ordinations.  Certain  kinds  of 
play  precede  others.  The  great  fundamental 
instincts  never  cease,  but  the  form  of  their  ex- 
pression varies.  There  is  also  a  seasonal  rota- 
tion in  plays  corresponding  to  the  growth  of  the 
individual,  which  is  always  by  pulses.  The 
play  progression  has  physical,  mental,  and  moral 


154 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 


relations   to   the   development   of   the   individ- 
ual. 

CHART  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  PLAY1 


Kicking. 
Whole  arm,  body 
and  hand  movements. 
Dropping  things.     Blocks. 
Sand  plays,  digging,  piling,  etc. 
Running,    throwing,    cutting    and 
folding.     Swinging. 
Shooting,  guns,  bows,  slings,  etc.     Knife 
work.     Tools  of  increasing  complexity. 
Machinery. 


Sailing. 
Rowing. 
Swimming. 


Gymnastics. 
Indian  clubs,  etc. 


Tag. 
Cross  tag.  Word 
tag.      Prisoner's  base. 
Hide  and  seek.     Black 
man.     "Stunts." 
Ball  games.     One  old  cat. 
Throwing.    Fungo,  Rounders,  etc 
Marble  games.    Fat,  cints,  hole,  etc. 
Duck  on  a  rock.     Leap  frog. 
Track  and  field  sports. 
Football  games. 


Care  of  land 

and  animals. 

Hunting,  fishing. 

War.     Wrestling. 
Boxing,  fencing. 
Predatory.  Bill- 
iards.    Bowling. 


Baseball. 
Basket-ball. 
Cricket.  Hoc- 
key.     Gangs. 
Houses  in  woods. 
Pals.      Predatory 
gangs.  Hero  service. 


a 


< 


to 

« 

a 

3* 


Pedagogical  Seminary,  1899,  vi,  137. 


CHAPTER   XII 

PLAY  AND  PHYSICAL  GROWTH 


o 


NE  of  the  most  evident  characteristics 
of  a  new-born  baby  is  its  movements — 
the  motions  of  its  hands,  face,  legs,  arms, 
feet,  mouth,  eyebrows.  Immediately  after 
birth,  the  child  begins  to  make  separate  finger 
movements,  but  he  is  not  able  to  do  this  with 
conscious  direction  for  several  years.  During  the 
time  when  he  is  coming  into  this  conscious  con- 
trol, the  child's  chief  interest  is  related  definitely 
to  his  movements.  To  watch  the  plays  of  chil- 
dren with  reference  to  their  physical  develop- 
ment is  a  fascinating  process.  Each  period  in 
life  is  marked  by  a  new  interest,  which  corre- 
sponds exactly  to  the  neuro-muscular  develop- 
ment of  that  period.  Thus  the  interests  of 
children  are  of  the  greatest  significance,  not 
because  they  please  the  children,  but  because 
they  correspond  to  vital  processes  going  on  in 
the  child's  body,  mind,  and  character. 

The  amount  of  physical  exercise  which  the 
average  child  obtains  through  his  ordinary  play 
when  free  to  move  about  and  conduct  himself 

155 


156         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

as  he  pleases,  is  inconceivable  to  the  adult  un- 
til he  takes  the  trouble  to  make  an  actual  record 
of  the  number  of  movements  performed  by  some 
child  in  the  space  of  half  an  hour.  I  have  ob- 
tained a  number  of  records  of  this  kind.  The 
following  is  the  account  of  the  movements  of  a 
boy  of  four  during  one  hour. 

8:00  A.  M.  to  9:00  A.  M. 

Breakfast.  Raised  arm  from  plate  to  mouth  50  times. 
Jumped  down  from  chair.  Lifted  curtains.  Took  out 
blocks  and  cards.  Stood  up  straight;  repeated  8  times. 
Came  down  on  his  knees.  Set  cards  upon  window-sill  (in 
crack  between  window  and  sill).  Ran  across  with  card. 
Knees  in  chair  and  whirled  around.  Stooped  and  picked 
up  a  card.  Ran  with  it  across  the  room;  repeated  15 
times.  Turned  around  and  swung  his  arm.  Went  up- 
stairs to  third  story  with  hands  in  pockets.  Walked 
around,  raised  his  arm  to  touch  things  on  table.  Went 
down-stairs  with  considerable  enthusiasm.  Skipped  across 
the  hall.  Stooped,  picked  up  leggins.  Went  up-stairs. 
Went  down-stairs.  Scuffed  around  swinging  his  arms  (not 
angry,  just  steam  working  off).  Ran  up-stairs.  Sat  down 
at  table  and  twirled  a  box  around.  Lay  down  on  couch. 
Ran  across  hall  and  part  way  down-stairs.  Lay  down  flat 
on  landing.  Got  up.  Stooped  half-way.  Ran  across 
room.  Sat  down  on  floor  to  put  on  shoe.  Buttoned  one 
shoe.  Lay  on  couch  swinging  feet  in  air.  Hanging 
from  hands  and  feet  between  two  articles  of  furniture. 
Got  on  head  of  couch  and  slid  down  on  his  abdomen. 
Pulled  on  other  shoe.  Rolled  to  sitting  posture  on  the 
floor.  Sat  on  couch.  Slid  to  floor  again.  Lay  with  feet 
up,  looking  at  shadows  cast  by  his  performance.  Ran 
across  hall  and  down-stairs  and  opened  door.  Climbed 
into  chair,  swung  his  feet. 


PLAY  AND  PHYSICAL  GROWTH     157 

If  in  that  exercise  all  the  body  movements 
could  have  been  put  together,  and  all  the  arm 
flexions  together,  it  would  have  been  exceed- 
ingly fatiguing.  The  way  in  which  the  child 
combines  a  variety  of  movements  when  he  is 
playing  freely  gives  the  greatest  amount  of  ex- 
ercise with  the  least  amount  of  fatigue.  He  is 
in  constant  motion,  but  the  motion  is  always 
changing.  This  is  in  sharp  contrast  to  the 
methods  employed  in  our  school  gymnastics. 
There  all  the  motions  of  one  kind  are  performed 
in  rapid  succession;  no  method  is  more  fatigu- 
ing than  this.  Moreover,  the  new  neuro-mus- 
cular  adjustments,  which  are  acquired  even  more 
surely  during  rest  following  action  than  during 
action  itself,  are  obtained  much  more  readily 
through  the  method  of  play  than  through  that 
of  the  gymnasium. 

Here  is  a  record  of  the  muscular  movements 
of  a  boy  two  and  a  half  years  old — the  exercise 
taken  in  an  ordinary  day,  without  suggestion  or 
stimulation. 

8:00  A.M. 

Child  was  sitting  down  15  minutes,  playing  (arm  move- 
ments only).  He  stood  up,  sat  down  in  new  position,  16 
arm  movements,  4  bendings  from  waist.  Stood  up, 
stooped  twice  picking  up  toys.  Sat  down,  3  arm  move- 
ments, 2  bendings;  4  arm  movements,  1  bending.  Stood 
up,  stooped  over.     Sat  down,  3  arm  movements,  1  bending, 


158        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

3  arm  movements.  Threw  ball  across  the  room.  Stood 
up,  3  arm  movements.  Walked  few  steps,  6  arm  move- 
ments. Walked  8  steps,  2  arm  movements.  Picked  up 
block,  sat  down,  2  arm  movements,  1  bending.  Stood  up, 
1  bending,  2  arm  movements.  Sat  down,  1  bending,  6  arm 
movements,  1  bending.  Stood  up,  walked  10  steps. 
Stooped,  walked  back  10  steps,  3  arm  movements. 
Walked  2  steps,  stooped,  2  arm  movements,  1  bending. 
Walked  3  steps,  stooped,  2  arm  movements.  Walked  6 
steps,  stooped,  2  arm  movements.  Sat  down,  3  arm  move- 
ments, 1  bending,  1  arm  movement.  Threw  block,  1  arm 
movement,  1  bending,  4  arm  movements,  1  bending,  2  arm 
movements,  1  bending,  1  arm  movement,  1  bending,  4 
arm  movements,  2  bendings,  1  arm  movement,  4  leg  move- 
ments. Stood  up,  1  arm  movement.  Walked  3  steps,  1 
bending,  3  arm  movements;  walked  5  steps,  stooped,  2  arm 
movements.  Walked  5  steps,  stooped,  4  arm  movements. 
Walked  across  the  room,  3  arm  movements.  Walked 
across  room  twice,  2  arm  movements.  Walked  across  the 
room  again,  6  arm  movements.  Stooped,  5  arm  move- 
ments, 3  leg  movements.  Walked  6  steps,  2  arm  move- 
ments. 

Climbed  on  mother's  lap  and  off  again.  Walked  several 
steps,  stooped,  picked  up  toy.  Walked  back,  2  arm  move- 
ments. Leaned  against  mother,  swaying  back  and  forth. 
Walked  a  few  steps,  stood  rocking  from  side  to  side  14 
times.     Sat  down;   7  arm  movements,  3  leg  movements, 

4  bendings.  Stood  up.  Walked  7  steps,  4  arm  move- 
ments. Ran  across  room  and  back,  swinging  one  arm. 
Stooped.  Took  6  steps,  1  arm  movement,  4  steps,  8  arm 
movements.  Ran  across  room  and  back,  1  arm  move- 
ment.    Sat  on  table,  4  arm  movements,  4  leg  movements, 

1  bending,  1  arm  movement.  1  bending,  1  arm  movement, 
4  leg  movements,  2  arm  movements,  1  bending,  1  arm 
movement,  1  leg  movement,  3  arm  movements,  1  bending, 

2  arm  movements,  1  bending,  4  arm  movements,  1  bend- 
ing, 7  arm  movements,  1  leg  movement,  1  bending,  5  arm 
movements,  2  leg  movements,  3  arm  movements,  2  bend- 


PLAY  AND  PHYSICAL  GROWTH     159 

ings,  5  arm  movements,  2  bendings,  3  arm  movements  3 
leg  movements. 

Sat  on  mother's  lap,  11  arm  movements,  1  bending,  2 
arm  movements,  1  bending,  1  arm  movement,  1  bending, 
1  arm  movement.  Got  down  on  floor.  Walked  across 
room  4  times,  3  arm  movements.  Sat  down,  3  arm  move- 
ments. Stood  up.  Walked  5  steps,  crouched  down  5 
times.  Picked  up  blocks  and  threw  them  across  the  room. 
WTalked  8  steps.  Swayed  6  times,  10  steps,  crouched 
down.  Stood  up,  4  steps,  2  arm  movements.  Ran  across 
room  and  back,  1  arm  movement.  Crawled  over  mother's 
lap  as  she  sat  on  the  floor;  3  steps,  2  arm  movements. 
Ran  across  room  and  back,  2  arm  movements.  Ran  across 
room,  stooped.  Came  back,  4  arm  movements,  7  steps, 
3  arm  movements.  1  bending,  2  arm  movements. 
Crossed  room,  came  back,  6  arm  movements.  Ran  length 
of  two  rooms  twice.  Sat  down,  playing  with  blocks,  9 
arm  movements.  Stood  up,  4  steps.  Picked  up  block. 
Walked  back.  Sat  down,  4  arm  movements,  1  arm  move- 
ment, 1  bending,  2  bendings.  Stood  up,  took  30  steps. 
Picked  up  blocks.  Sat  down,  1  bending,  4  arm  move- 
ments, 1  bending,  2  arm  movements,  1  bending.  Stood 
up.  Took  5  steps.  Swayed  back  and  forth.  Ran  across 
two  rooms  and  back,  1  arm  movement.  Walked  across 
room,  pulling  little  wagon.  Came  back  length  of  two  rooms, 
6  times,  swinging  arms. 

Sat  down,  spinning  little  wheel,  18  arm  movements. 
Stood  up.  Walked  13  steps,  11  arm  movements.  Walked 
length  of  two  rooms,  9  arm  movements.  WTalked  length 
of  two  rooms  and  back,  5  arm  movements.  Took 
a  book,  turning  over  the  pages,  4  arm  movements. 
Walked  across  room.  Ran  across  two  rooms.  Sat  down, 
swinging  arm  17  times.  Stood  up,  3  arm  movements. 
Walked  across  room  and  back.  Sat  down,  2  arm  move- 
ments. Climbed  on  lap,  down  again.  Walked  length  of 
two  rooms  and  back.  Walked  length  of  two  rooms  and 
back.  Ran  across  room  twice.  Ran  across  room,  3 
arm  movements,  1  bending.     Ran  across  two  rooms,  2 


160        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

arm  movements.  Ran  across  two  rooms,  3  arm  move- 
ments. 

For  next  ten  minutes  was  walking  or  running  about, 
without  sitting  down  or  doing  anything  in  particular.  For 
10  minutes  he  sat  on  table,  using  only  arm  movements. 
Then  he  climbed  flight  of  14  steps.  Was  put  to  bed  for  a 
nap.  Took  45  minutes  to  go  to  sleep.  Half  that  time  he 
was  rolling  or  creeping  over  the  bed.     Slept  two  hours. 

Woke  and  had  dinner.  This  took  25  minutes,  during 
which  time  only  arm  movements  were  used.  Sat  on  floor 
for  27  minutes,  Turk-fashion,  using  arm  movements  and 
bendings  from  waist  (about  one  arm  movement  in  3 
seconds).  Then  he  climbed  flight  of  stairs  again,  was 
brought  down  and  dressed  to  go  out.  This  took  10  min- 
utes and  all  that  time  he  was  squirming.  (No  other  word 
will  express  it.) 

Went  out  for  V/i  hours.  For  J/£  nour  of  this  time  he 
was  visiting  at  another  home,  and  was  walking  and  run- 
ning about  the  whole  time.  As  soon  as  he  returned  home, 
he  sat  on  the  floor,  playing  with  blocks,  all  arm  move- 
ments, except  an  occasional  leg  movement  in  changing 
position.  Stood  up,  swaying  from  side  to  side.  Walked 
across  room.  Picked  up  20  blocks,  stooping  for  each  one 
and  placing  it  on  the  sofa  3  steps  away.  Piled  them  above 
his  head,  reaching  as  high  as  he  could.  Walked  half  across 
the  room,  pulled  a  chair  away  from  the  table  and  pushed 
it  back.  Pushed  another  five  feet.  Walked  around  it, 
then  around  the  room.  Picked  up  2  blocks  and  then  threw 
them  down.  Walked  about  4  feet  to  a  chair  and  rocked  it 
12  or  13  times.  Ran  the  length  of  room,  knelt  down,  sat 
down,  building  up  blocks.  Stood  up.  Ran  length  of 
room  and  to  a  chair,  played  with  toys  on  it,  using  arm 
movements.  Ran  across  room  and  back.  Picked  up  one 
toy,  carrying  it  into  next  room.  Repeated  this  twice. 
Walked  around  large  table.  Walked  length  of  two  rooms 
3  times.  Walked  around  in  a  circle.  Leaned  against 
mother,  swinging  back  and  forth  3  times.  Walked  twice 
around  mother,  stooped  3  times  to  pick  up  blocks,  rolling 


PLAY  AND  PHYSICAL  GROWTH    161 

them  down  inclined  plane.  Picked  up  10  more,  stooped  each 
time,  and  threwT  them  as  far  as  he  could.  Walked  7  steps. 
Picked  up  8  blocks,  throwing  them  down.  Walked  across 
room  3  times,  picking  up  a  block  each  time.  Walked 
across  room.  Picked  up  2  blocks.  Walked  back,  laid 
them  in  box.  Repeated  this  4  times.  Climbed  on  lap 
and  off.     Put  hands  together  and  sw^ayed  up  and  down 

3  times.  Climbed  on  lap  and  down  again.  Walked 
length  of  room  6  times. 

Sat  down.  Stood  up.  Walked  across  room  twice. 
Took  blocks,  2  at  a  time,  from  sofa  and  threw  them  on  the 
floor.  Sat  dowm.  Stood  up.  Walked  across  room.  Lay 
on  his  back  for  2  minutes,  kicking  and  rolling  over.  Sat 
on  table  18  minutes;  there  were  few  leg  movements  during 
this  time,  but  arm  movements  and  bendings  or  swayings 
from  his  hips  were  continuous.  Sat  on  lap  7  minutes, 
arm  movements  only.  Got  down  on  floor,  ran  around 
table,  rocked  large  chair  back  and  forth  17  times.  Sat 
down.  Stood  up.  Sat  down.  Stood  up.  Put  head  on 
lap  as  mother  sat  on  floor,  making  an  arch  of  his  body.  Sat 
down.     Stood  up.     Walked  across  room.     Walked  about 

4  minutes.  Sat  down,  playing  with  blocks  for  6  minutes 
(all  arm  and  hip  movements).  Stood  up  and  piled  up 
some  blocks,  stooping  6  times.  Stooped  6  times,  lifting 
lid  off  box  and  letting  it  fall  again.  Ran  around  room. 
Picked  up  toy  horn  and  blew  it  4  times.  Climbed  on  lap. 
Slid  down.  Played  wTith  doll  1  minute.  Walked  6  steps. 
Picked  up  box,  put  block  in  and  shook  box  until  block  fell 
out.  Did  this  twice.  Ran  across  room  15  times.  Ran 
across  room  4  times.  Ran  around  room  twice,  then  across 
twice.  Picked  up  ball  and  threw  it.  Did  same  with  an- 
other toy.  W7alked  a  few  steps.  Picked  up  3  toys  and 
set  them  on  the  floor.  Sat  down.  Stood  up.  Walked 
to  corner  and  picked  up  several  things.  Walked  back. 
Sat  down  for  1  minute.  Walked  to  bookcase  twice  (19 
steps  each  way).  Pulled  out  4  books  and  put  them  back. 
Sat  down.     Played  with  toys  2  minutes. 

At  supper   (15  minutes),  arm  movements  only.     WTas 


162         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

put  to  bed.  For  an  hour  was  hardly  still  a  minute,  creep- 
ing and  rolling  about,  sitting  up  and  throwing  himself  back 
on  mattress. 

The  length  and  width  of  each  room  was  about  15  feet. 
Usually  in  crossing  room,  the  child  went  only  12  feet  of  the 
length  or  width  of  the  room.  In  going  around  the  room  he 
went  21  feet. 

These  are  ordinary,  not  extraordinary,  ex- 
amples of  the  physical  exercise  taken  by  the 
average  child  in  his  play.  We  need  to  have 
brought  to  our  remembrance  the  amount  and 
kind  of  movements  that  children  undertake 
freely,  in  order  to  realize  how  inadequate  are  the 
usual  school  gymnastics  of  fifteen  to  twenty 
minutes  per  day  in  giving  the  kind  of  exercise 
that  the  organism  needs  for  development. 

The  progression  of  plays  from  one  year  to  the 
next  as  the  individual  grows  in  maturity  coin- 
cides with  and  helps  to  develop  the  entire  mus- 
cular and  nervous  systems.  The  games  played 
at  twelve  involve  more  muscular  power  than 
those  played  at  seven.  This  can  be  clearly  seen 
in  the  chart  of  Anglo-Saxon  play.  Not  every 
game  involves  more  muscular  power  than  the 
one  preceding  it;  some,  marbles,  for  instance, 
require  little  muscular  power.  But  in  general 
a  distinct  progression  can  be  noticed.  Foot- 
ball, basket-ball,  cricket,  hockey,  shinney,  polo 
demand  more  physical  strength  than  the  baby 
or  the  little  boy  possesses. 


PLAY  AND  PHYSICAL  GROWTH     163 

There  is  also  a  progression  in  speed.  Notice 
the  demand  for  speed  in  baseball,  basket-ball, 
football,  cricket,  or  lacrosse.  These  games  all 
require  instant  response.  Consider,  for  instance, 
the  length  of  time  that  the  baseball  batter  has 
to  decide  whether  he  will  hit  the  ball  or  not, 
after  it  leaves  the  pitcher's  hand.  The  ball 
must  go  about  one-third  or  one-half  the  dis- 
tance, between  twenty  or  thirty  feet,  before  the 
man  can  begin  to  decide.  He  must  judge  the 
curve  of  the  ball  and  the  speed  and  direction  it 
will  have  when  it  reaches  him.  He  must  send 
out  stimuli  to  the  muscles  that  control  the  bal- 
ancing of  his  body;  as  he  strikes,  he  must  bend 
forward  and  then  run.  He  must  adjust  the 
knees,  the  back,  and  the  pelvis.  The  ball  is 
going  at  the  rate  of  almost  sixty  feet  in  a  second. 
It  will  reach  the  space  where  he  must  do  his 
batting  in  less  than  a  second.  Compare  the 
speed  and  precision  demanded  of  the  player 
with  the  muscular  adjustment  of  the  baby. 
Compare  it  even  with  that  demanded  in  the 
games  of  the  small  boy,  like  "One  old  cat,,! 
which  does  not  require  instantaneous  reaction. 
The  difference  in  speed  makes  baseball  a  dif- 
ferent game. 

There  is  also  growth  in  the  amount  of  en- 
durance demanded  in  play.  One  of  the  interest- 
ing facts  in  those  records  of  the  movements  of 


164         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

small  children  is  the  brief  length  of  time  given 
to  any  particular  activity.  A  baby  six  months 
old  will  go  over  all  his  plays  several  times  a  day 
if  he  has  the  opportunity,  and  he  will  play  the 
same  plays  the  next  da}r,  each  one  of  them  a 
little  at  a  time.  To  keep  a  baby  playing  at  the 
same  thing  for  two  or  three  hours  is  foolish  and 
cruel,  but  to  let  a  man  play  three  minutes  four 
times  a  day  is  just  as  foolish.  The  man  has  de- 
veloped power,  and  growth  of  power  means  ab- 
sorption for  long  periods  of  time. 

The  pulses  of  interest  observed  in  the  seasonal 
rotation  of  plays  increase  in  length  with  growth. 
Early  in  the  teens  three  months  is  about  the 
length  of  consecutive  interest  and  absorbing 
effort.  Frequently  it  is  less  than  that  time  and 
a  change  is  demanded  sooner.  As  he  grows  older 
the  things  which  interest  a  boy  remain  of  interest 
for  a  longer  period.  A  pulse  of  interest  in  elec- 
tricity may  last  for  two  or  three  years.  The 
play  interests  differ  in  no  fundamental  respect 
from  these  other  interests  expressed  in  art, 
literature,  and  some  work.  Formerly  I  was  dis- 
turbed by  the  fact  that  after  about  three  months' 
work  of  a  particular  kind  I  was  no  longer  in- 
tensely interested  in  the  task.  But  I  discovered 
that  periods  of  recurring  interest  always  come  to 
unfinished  jobs.     The  forcing  of  original,  vital 


PLAY  AND  PHYSICAL  GROWTH     165 

work  beyond  the  period  of  interest  is  a  great 
mistake.  It  tends  toward  the  killing  of  fer- 
tility. That  is  the  lesson  of  the  recurrence  of 
plays. 

Enormous  growth  in  the  complexity  of  co- 
ordinations is  also  shown  in  the  play  progression. 
A  small  baby  that  cannot  yet  sit  up  learns  first 
to  hold  its  head,  then  to  use  its  back.  After  a 
while  it  learns  to  take  hold  of  objects,  and  finally 
follows  the  intensely  interesting  operation  of 
learning  how  to  throw.  Very  early  it  discovers 
its  mouth,  and  learns  to  carry  the  hand  to  the 
mouth.  It  acquires  conscious  control  of  the 
hands.  I  remember  the  first  time  a  baby  of 
mine  acquired  the  ability  to  hold  and  drop  ob- 
jects. The  child  was  in  a  high  chair  and  had  a 
silver  spoon  on  the  tray.  She  took  the  spoon  and 
dropped  it  to  the  floor.  I  picked  it  up  and  put 
it  back  on  the  tray;  the  baby  dropped  it  again. 
The  baby  did  this  seventy-nine  times  without 
stopping;  she  was  learning  about  falling  things. 
After  that  she  experimented  similarly  for  a  time 
with  everything  she  could  lay  hands  on.  But 
before  long  she  passed  on  to  other  activities. 
Learning  to  use  a  knife  and  fork  is  an  achieve- 
ment built  on  previous  attainments.  The  sta- 
bility, the  power,  the  speed,  the  complexity  of 
the  later  plays  are  built  on  the  earlier  ones. 


166         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

Play  reflects  the  muscular  co-ordinations  of  the 
child  at  the  time;  it  also  assists  in  developing 
them. 

Far  more  important  for  the  child's  best 
growth  than  any  muscular  development,  or 
than  any  increase  in  strength,  speed  and  com- 
plexity of  movements,  is  vitality.  In  this  all- 
around  toning  up  of  the  physical  system,  play  has 
one  of  its  greatest  contributions  to  make  to  our 
modern  society.  We  have  not  yet  learned  how 
to  obtain  vitality  from  city  living.  City  stock 
tends  all  the  time  to  dwindle  in  resistance  and 
recuperative  power.  In  past  generations  it 
has  had  to  be  replenished  by  a  constant  inflow  of 
strong  country  stock;  and  the  conditions  which 
have  made  that  necessary  in  the  past  are  even 
more  in  evidence  to-day.  Our  industrial  life 
lacks  balance;  it  gives  no  roundness  of  develop- 
ment. 

Everything  conspires  to  bring  the  city-born 
child  upon  the  stage  of  life  with  an  oversensitive 
nervous  system  and  an  undertoned  physique. 
This  is  an  entirely  logical  result  of  city  conditions 
as  they  now  are.  No  amount  of  medical  pro- 
tection, of  sanitary  legislation,  can  make  good 
this  depletion  of  vitality.  It  can  only  be  rem- 
edied by  providing  for  the  inhabitants  of  the 
city,  most  of  all  during  their  years  of  growth, 


PLAY  AND   PHYSICAL  GROWTH     167 

the  opportunities  of  all-around  physical  develop- 
ment such  as  have  heretofore  been  found  only 
outside  its  bounds.  The  city  child  needs  a  mus- 
cular system  built  up  along  the  broad  general 
lines  of  an  unspecialized  life,  the  sort  of  life  his 
ancestors  have  known ;  and  since  this  is  not  pro- 
vided naturally  in  the  midst  of  the  artificiality 
of  the  city,  it  must  be  provided  artificially. 

We  have  begun  to  recognize  the  importance  of 
muscles  in  the  normal  growth  of  personality. 
The  nervous  system  and  the  muscular  system 
are  so  vitally  interrelated  in  the  carrying  on  of 
all  life's  central  activities,  that  to  educate  the 
former  without  at  the  same  time  making  pro- 
vision for  the  latter  is  fools'  economy.  All  the 
most  characteristic  strains  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion fall  upon  the  nervous  system.  Yet  it  is 
the  latest  system  of  the  body,  biologically  speak- 
ing, to  reach  its  full  complexity  of  development; 
and  it  is  the  part  most  easily  shattered.  The 
city  forces  the  nervous  system,  like  a  plant  in  a 
greenhouse  forced  into  flower  before  its  natural 
time;  and  if  an  equilibrium  is  not  in  some  way 
re-established,  the  undue  pressure  upon  the  func- 
tions least  able  to  endure  strain  is  likely  to  bring 
disaster.     A  tower  needs  foundation. 

The  demands  of  a  city  child's  daily  programme 
develop  his  physique  only  in  partial  and  one- 


168         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

sided  ways.  He  has  no  trees  to  climb,  no  swim- 
ming-hole to  duck  into,  no  garden  to  hoe,  no 
wood  to  saw.  He  has  no  space  available  for 
playing  the  big  all-around  games,  such  as 
baseball  and  hockey.  His  hand  may  acquire 
skill  in  the  manipulation  of  delicate  things,  his 
senses  become  precociously  sharpened,  his  wits 
quickened  and  refined;  but  his  body  does  not 
get  its  dues. 

Out  of  78,401  public  school  children  examined 
in  one  year  in  New  York  City,  58,259  were  found 
to  be  in  need  of  medical  attention.  That  does 
not  speak  very  hopefully  for  the  physical  calibre 
of  the  next  generation.  And  if  the  next  genera- 
tion is  to  fail  us,  our  schools  costing  millions  of 
dollars  a  year  have  no  object.  These  schools 
look  only  toward  the  future;  they  are  carried 
forward  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  to  be 
a  generation  more  capable  and  a  future  richer 
than  the  past. 

The  routine  physical  training  of  the  school  will 
not  help  us  much  in  this  particular  situation. 
The  aim  of  this  feature  of  our  curriculum  is  to 
correct  certain  evils  that  necessarily  result  from 
the  special  conditions  of  the  schoolroom — the 
bent  back,  the  eye-strain,  the  shallow  breath- 
ing, the  mental  fatigue.  But  schoolroom  gym- 
nastics can  hardly  reach  farther  than  that  aim. 


PLAY  AND   PHYSICAL  GROWTH     169 

Even  at  their  best  they  are  hopelessly  far  from 
meeting  the  deeper  physical  needs  of  the  child, 
needs  which  reach  so  far  into  the  child's  inner 
constitution  that  it  would  be  quite  as  appropri- 
ate to  call  them  spiritual  needs.  For  from  their 
very  nature,  school  gymnastics  must  be  formal, 
almost  mechanical,  giving  little  scope  to  the  im- 
agination, and  appealing  but  slightly  to  the 
child's  hungry  instincts. 

In  order  then  to  supply  our  city  children  with 
the  opportunity  for  healthy,  spontaneous,  free 
growth  from  within,  we  must  give  them  a 
chance  to  play.  Play  is  nature's  preparation 
for  the  business  of  later  life.  It  finds  its  roots 
in  the  remote  past  when  man  lived  by  hunting 
and  climbing  and  fighting;  it  looks  forward  to 
the  time  when  each  boy  and  girl  must  shoulder 
responsibilities — the  care  of  the  home,  the  con- 
flicts of  business  and  of  politics.  It  sums  up 
and  it  anticipates.  It  is  life  itself  in  miniature 
— not  the  narrow  specialized  life  of  the  me- 
chanic, salesman,  clothes  finisher,  or  account- 
ant, but  the  broad,  simple,  diversified  life  of  a 
more  primitive  humanity. 

Play  is  the  only  equivalent  that  can  replace 
the  inheritance  which  the  child  has  lost.  It  is 
the  whole  of  the  child  that  is  called  into  action 
here:     muscle,    imagination,    and    moral    force. 


170 


A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 


The  response  to  these  varied  demands  upon  him 
is  made  eagerly,  passionately,  without  any 
thought  of  obedience  to  authority.  Play  makes 
an  instinctive  appeal  to  every  child. 

We  are  learning  that  we  have  not  paid  all 
our  debt  to  the  future  when  we  have  established 
for  our  children  protection  against  disease  and 
given  them  the  usual  school  education.  Equally 
imperative  is  it  that  we  should  provide  for  the 
development  from  within  of  vitality  and  power 
of  resistance.  Healthy  play  does  that,  and  it 
does  even  more;  it  stimulates  and  co-ordinates 
the  growth  of  the  entire  muscular  and  nervous 
systems,  in  strength,  in  complexity  and  speed 
of  adjustment,  in  endurance;  and  it  accom- 
plishes these  results  in  the  only  way  that  is 
finally  effective — the  way  of  joyous  self-expres- 
sion. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

PLAY  AND  EDUCATION 

THE  spontaneous  development  of  the 
child's  interests  as  shown  in  play  va- 
ries in  many  particulars  from  the  con- 
sciously directed  development  given  by  our  mod- 
ern type  of  education.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
interest  shown  by  the  high  school  or  college 
boy  in  football.  If  he  is  a  healthy,  normal 
boy,  during  the  football  season  he  is  interested 
in  that  game  to  the  exclusion  of  almost  every- 
thing else.  If  he  sits  down  to  study,  ideas  of 
football  keep  crowding  in.  He  will  dream  foot- 
ball. He  will  lose  his  self-consciousness  com- 
pletely in  the  consciousness  of  the  team  on  which 
he  plays.  He  will  go  to  bed  thinking  how  to 
make  a  certain  play,  and  he  will  sit  in  school 
working  out  plans  for  accomplishing  certain 
moves  in  the  game.  That  part  of  his  mind  con- 
cerned with  football  grows  tremendously — out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  actual  amount  of  time  spent 
on  the  subject.  Then  the  interest  in  football 
drops,  and  in  the  spring  comes  baseball.  Base- 
ball now  becomes  his  major  interest  and  colors 
all  his  thoughts. 

171 


172        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  an  interest  in 
physical  activity  overshadowing  an  intellectual 
interest.  There  is  a  principle  here  which  may 
be  used  to  great  advantage  in  intellectual  work 
as  well.  At  about  the  age  of  eleven  one  of  my 
daughters  became  much  interested  in  birds. 
She  was  led  to  make  a  careful  study  of  the  birds 
in  the  neighborhood  of  our  home;  books  treat- 
ing of  them  were  procured  for  her.  She  worked 
out  much  information  from  an  encyclopaedia. 
She  accomplished  surprising  results  which  were 
out  of  proportion  to  the  small  amount  of  time 
actually  spent  on  the  subject.  A  father  read 
to  his  daughter,  who  had  barely  reached  the 
age  when  she  could  read  herself,  an  interesting 
child's  book  on  astronomy.  She  became  greatly 
interested,  and  her  father  furnished  her  with 
the  necessary  books  on  astronomy.  The  child 
went  through  several  heavy  volumes  before  that 
pulse  of  interest  was  exhausted,  although  she 
had  to  use  a  dictionary  with  almost  as  much 
frequency  as  if  she  were  studying  a  foreign 
language.  As  a  special  favor  she  was  allowed  on 
certain  nights  to  sit  up  late  enough  to  see  the 
stars.  She  obtained  a  map  of  the  sky  and  puz- 
zled out  constellation  after  constellation.  Then 
her  interest  stopped  rather  suddenly  and  was 
never  again  revived  with  equal  strength.     How- 


PLAY  AND  EDUCATION  173 

ever,  in  that  short  time  she  had  acquired  a 
knowledge  of  astronomy  of  some  extent  and  of 
much  greater  permanency  than  anything  she 
learned  in  school  that  year. 

A  high  school  boy  became  interested  in  trac- 
ing out  his  genealogy.  Both  his  father's  and 
his  mother's  lines  were  peculiarly  rich  in  illus- 
trious ancestors.  His  interest  lasted  for  two 
years.  During  that  time  he  acquired  such 
minute  knowledge  of  detailed  history,  running 
back  to  the  Middle  Ages,  that  on  two  occasions 
he  was  asked  to  lecture  to  a  university  class  on 
the  social  customs,  family  relations,  and  inti- 
mate personal  history  of  certain  epochs.  He 
pushed  certain  lines  of  genealogy  farther  back 
than  any  one  else  had  carried  them,  and  could 
speak  with  such  authority  that  he  was  asked  to 
give  his  results  for  publication.  He  filled  his 
rooms  with  coats-of-arms  painted  by  himself, 
and  in  one  year  his  Christmas  presents  to  his 
friends  consisted  almost  entirely  of  these.  Then 
his  interest  dropped,  and  he  went  on  to  other 
activities. 

These  are  merely  extreme  examples  of  what 
frequently  happens  in  connection  with  the  in- 
tellectual interests  of  boys  and  girls.  A  boy 
who  becomes  filled  with  a  desire  to  find  out  about 
electricity,  who  is  given  a  shop  room  and  al- 


174         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

lowed  to  make  bells,  telegraph  connections,  and 
various  appliances,  obtains  a  technical  knowledge 
of  the  subject  which  is  far  more  extended  and 
permanent  than  any  which  the  school  system  of 
education  has  yet  succeeded  in  giving  its  pupils. 

Nor  can  it  be  claimed  that  the  knowledge  thus 
gained  and  the  mental  development  secured 
pass  with  the  pulse  of  interest.  Let  any  one  of 
us  become  immersed  in  a  subject,  think  in  it,  and 
live  in  it,  and  then  stop  for  a  while.  When 
next  he  approaches  the  subject,  he  will  find  that 
he  has  greater  power  and  skill  than  before.  A 
man  who  practised  throwing  balls  kept  a  record 
of  his  increase  in  skill.  When  he  had  practised 
for  six  months,  he  stopped  for  six  months.  Then 
when  he  tried  again,  in  his  first  three  or  four 
trials  he  did  better  than  he  had  done  at  the  end 
of  six  months'  practice. 

That  is  the  way  the  successful  work  of  the 
world  is  done,  by  pulses  of  interest,  followed  by 
periods  of  relative  inactivity  with  reference  to 
that  interest.  The  great  artistic  feats  of  the 
world  have  been  performed  by  people  who  work 
in  that  way.  The  great  geniuses  have  contrib- 
uted their  work  chiefly  in  periods  of  intense 
application  followed  by  periods  of  relative  quiet. 

We  have  not  made  extensive  application  of 
this  observation  to  our  system  of  school  in- 


PLAY  AND  EDUCATION  175 

struction.  If  there  are  twenty  subjects  to  be 
mastered,  we  divide  the  time  into  twenty  equal 
parts  and  give  equal  time  and  emphasis  to  each. 
The  results  may  be  seen  in  extreme  form  in  the 
following  instance.  A  girl  came  to  Pratt  In- 
stitute and  applied  for  advanced  standing  in 
geometry.  The  course  there  covered  five  rec- 
itations a  wTeek.  She  said  that  she  had  studied 
geometry  for  two  years.  "You  must  have 
covered  much  more  work  than  we  have,"'  I  said. 
"What  book  did  you  use?'  She  did  not  re- 
member the  name  of  the  book.  She  could  not 
remember  one  of  the  propositions,  formulae,  or 
original  problems.  It  appeared  that  she  had 
studied  geometry  for  two  years,  twenty  minutes 
a  week.  Thus  each  period  of  interest  was  so 
far  removed  from  the  next  that  there  was  no 
cumulative  effect.  All  the  enthusiasm  had  been 
taken  out  of  the  subject  by  dabbling  in  it.  It 
was  like  learning  to  play  the  piano  or  to  swing 
Indian  clubs  by  spending  twenty  minutes  a 
week  on  practice. 

The  play  curriculum  gives  us  a  most  valuable 
suggestion  here.  The  play  curriculum  of  chil- 
dren beyond  the  age  of  babyhood  does  not  have 
its  subjects  divided  equally  with  all  the  plays 
pursued  a  little  every  day.  It  has  a  major  and 
one  or  two  minors.     The  little  child  has  indeed 


176         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

shorter  pulses  of  interest;  he  goes  the  rounds  of 
his  plays  every  day,  and  a  little  later  in  life 
every  few  days.  But  a  boy  or  girl  of  eight,  ten, 
or  twelve  years  goes  the  round  only  once  or 
twice  a  year.  In  the  teens  the  pulse  of  interest 
may  last  one,  two,  or  three  years.  These  facts 
would  seem  to  have  very  important  implications 
for  education.  At  present  our  school  curricu- 
lum is  divided,  not  pedagogically  nor  psycho- 
logically, but  logically.  Life  interests  are  not  so 
divided.  The  division  of  subjects  in  the  school 
bears  no  resemblance  to  the  spontaneous  activi- 
ties either  of  play  or  of  life.  Hence  it  tends 
toward  fatigue  and  loss  of  efficiency. 

In  play,  the  new  games  are  related  to  new 
dawning  abilities.  We  find  the  boy  wanting  to 
make  machinery  and  the  girl  to  make  the  smaller 
articles  of  the  household  during  the  years  when 
the  finger  muscles  and  the  nerve  centres  con- 
trolling them  are  ripening.  We  should  not 
change  this  order.  We  waste  time  and  effort  if 
we  attempt  to  go  counter  to  it.  Some  teachers 
of  gymnastics  try  to  get  minute  co-ordinations 
from  children  of  an  age  when  they  are  and  should 
be  totally  incompetent  to  give  such  co-ordina- 
tions. Much  effort  is  spent,  and  the  child  does 
not  succeed.  I  once  determined  that  my  chil- 
dren should  learn  to  swim  at  an  early  age.     Be- 


PLAY  AND   EDUCATION  177 

fore  they  could  learn  to  walk  I  put  water  in  the 
bathtub,  adding  a  little  more  every  day,  and 
tried  to  teach  them  to  swim.  I  wasted  many 
hours  of  my  own  time  and  my  children's,  and 
they  did  not  learn  to  swim.  At  about  the  age 
of  eight,  they  learned  very  easily,  almost  spon- 
taneously. The  reason  for  this  may  be  that  in 
the  early  years  of  life  the  head  is  large  in  pro- 
portion to  the  body,  and  that  as  the  child  grows 
older  the  proportions  change.  Whatever  the 
theory,  the  fact  remains  that  between  eight  and 
ten  years  of  age,  children  learn  to  swim  with 
ease.  It  is  quite  futile  to  try  to  teach  children 
at  one  age  what  they  will  learn  of  themselves 
with  great  delight  and  rapidity  a  few  years  later. 
The  chief  forces  in  play  are  instinct  and  tradi- 
tion. Plays  at  various  ages  are  based  upon  fun- 
damental instinct  feelings.  They  derive  their 
interest  for  the  child  from  the  fact  that  they 
give  him  an  opportunity  for  self-expression. 
He  does  not  merely  go  through  the  activities  of 
play;  he  chooses  to  go  through  them.  Self- 
expression  is  in  itself  pleasurable;  it  is  also  in 
itself  educational.  There  is  no  reason  why  the 
subjects  of  the  school  curriculum  should  not  also 
be  so  adapted  to  the  dawning  abilities  of  the  child 
as  to  call  forth  his  free  choice.  An  interest 
pursued  from  choice  has  much  more  educational 


178         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

value,  both  in  the  extent  and  permanency  of 
knowledge  gained,  than  has  any  subject  to  which 
the  child  is  driven. 

There  is,  however,  a  force  other  than  mere 
instinct  feeling  which  guides  the  choice  of  the 
child  in  play.  Play  traditions  furnish  the  form 
in  which  the  instinct  feeling  finds  expression. 
One  child  in  a  group  does  not  play  marbles  while 
another  plays  ball,  and  still  another  engages  in  a 
different  game.  Similarly,  it  would  not  be  neces- 
sary in  the  schoolroom,  in  order  that  every  child 
might  have  free  self-expression,  to  have  each 
study  a  different  subject.  What  is  necessary  is 
to  provide  for  strong  pulses  of  interest  in  subjects 
related  to  the  actual  abilities  of  the  child.  The 
group  requirements  may  quite  easily  furnish 
the  actual  social  form  which  the  subjects  will 
take,  and  will  provide  for  many  children  studying 
the  same  subject  at  the  same  time. 

The  reason  for  the  great  amount  of  truancy 
and  vagabondage  during  the  school  age  is  to  be 
found  in  the  permanency  of  a  wholesome  juve- 
nile nature,  which  has  been  suddenly  plunged 
into  an  environment  entirely  out  of  joint  with 
its  instinct  feelings.  The  remedy  lies,  not  in  a 
fruitless  attempt  to  change  the  nature  of  chil- 
dren, or  to  turn  back  the  wheels  of  a  movement 
which  has  changed  their  environment,  but  in  an 


PLAY  AND  EDUCATION  179 

intelligent  constructive  effort  to  adapt  the  new- 
environment  to  the  children's  needs.  The  needs 
which  are  no  longer  provided  for  at  home  and 
which  are  most  definitely  related  to  idleness  and 
vagabondage  are  those  connected  with  suitable 
conditions  for  work,  play,  recreation,  and  social 
life.  It  is  necessary  that  children  learn  the  great 
moral  lessons  involved  in  work.  This  points 
toward  the  incorporation  of  a  large  industrial 
feature  into  our  conception  of  school.  The 
need  is  not  merely  or  primarily  that  of  furnish- 
ing vocational  training.  It  should  be  directed 
rather  toward  developing  a  gradual  participa- 
tion in  the  real  work  of  the  world  by  the  boys 
and  girls  while  they  are  in  school.  These  ac- 
tivities should  be  so  invested  with  the  character 
of  real  life  that  the  great  moral  habits  will  de- 
velop from  them  naturally. 

For  the  activities  of  play  are  not  merely  prep- 
aration for  life;  they  constitute  actual  living  at 
the  time,  and  the  process  is  a  real  one.  This 
same  reality  should  be  carried  over  into  the 
activities  of  school.  Life  in  school  should  be 
actual  life  in  the  stage  at  which  the  child  finds 
himself.  School  experiences  should  be  not  only 
representative,  but  actual.  The  various  definite 
things  learned  by  the  child  should  be  learned  in 
connection  with  an  activity  which  is  desirable  in 


180         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

itself.  Spelling  is  now  taught  incidentally,  in 
connection  with  writing.  It  becomes  a  means 
to  an  activity  which  actually  interests  the  child. 
In  some  schools  arithmetic  is  taught  in  connec- 
tion with  measurements  of  trees  and  other  nat- 
ural objects.  In  one  of  the  New  York  schools 
a  year  was  given  to  the  study  of  the  city  water 
system.  The  boys  were  taken  to  visit  the  res- 
ervoir; they  learned  the  engineering,  sanitary, 
and  geographical  problems;  they  clamored  for  a 
table  of  measurements  which  would  enable  them 
to  go  more  fully  into  the  subject. 

An  inductive  study  of  the  spontaneous  in- 
terests of  the  child  is  worth  while  for  education, 
not  merely  or  chiefly  from  the  standpoint  of 
making  school  life  pleasant  for  the  child,  but 
because  the  really  great  intellectual  achieve- 
ments must  be  done  from  desire.  Education  is 
accomplished  largely  by  the  child  himself.  In 
the  very  earliest  years  the  child  learns  of  his  own 
initiative.  His  parents  may  spend  time  teach- 
ing him  to  talk  or  walk,  but  the  great  bulk  of 
his  learning  is  done  by  the  child  himself.  He 
learns  by  suggestion  and  imitation,  based  on 
instinctive  tendencies.  Think  of  the  labor  that 
would  be  involved  in  explaining  to  every  child 
how  to  smile.  What  frightful  smiles  we  should 
see !     Smiling  and  many  similar  achievements 


PLAY  AND  EDUCATION  181 

are  the  result  of  spontaneous  activity  on  the 
part  of  the  child,  directed  through  selective 
imitation  in  accordance  with  the  traditions  of 
his  kind. 

The  place  of  conscious  direction  in  education 
is  to  furnish  the  time,  place,  and  materials  which 
will  draw  out  the  best  interests  of  children. 
We  must  build  upon  the  child's  instinctive  ten- 
dencies so  that  these  shall  blossom  into  the  best 
intellectual  life,  rather  than  drive  the  interests 
by  force  at  a  time  when  we  think  them  appropri- 
ate. Now  children  seem  to  spend  the  years 
from  seven  to  twelve  in  accomplishing  with 
great  difficulty  achievements  which  are  done 
with  ease  a  little  later  on.  We  take  from  the 
children  time  that  is  needed  for  growth,  for  the 
establishment  of  physical  health  and  bodily 
skill  and  the  related  intellectual  activities,  and 
put  it  upon  abstract  subjects  such  as  mathe- 
matics and  grammar,  which  are  forgotten  with 
the  greatest  ease  and  rapidity.  It  is  not  the 
place  of  conscious  teaching  to  make  children  do 
at  a  particular  time  with  infinite  pains  what 
they  would  do  with  delight  at  another  time. 
It  is  not  the  place  of  conscious  processes  to  at- 
tempt to  force  the  physical  or  mental  education 
of  the  child.  It  is  our  place  to  study  the  or- 
derly development  that  nature  adopts  whenever 


182        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

there  is  opportunity,  and  to  relate  our  sub- 
jects and  habits  of  study  to  that  development 
so  that  the  child  shall  be  brought  most  easily 
into  sharing  the  best  life  of  the  past  and  pres- 
ent. 

In  order  to  do  this,  a  careful  inductive  study 
of  the  spontaneous  plays  of  children  is  necessary. 
It  is  perhaps  the  most  fundamental  criticism 
to  be  passed  on  Froebel's  theory  of  play  that  he 
made  no  inductive  study  of  this  kind.  He  was 
keenly  sensitive  to  the  educational  value  of 
play,  and  voiced  new  and  epoch-making  ideas. 
But  when  he  actually  chose  the  plays  for  his 
kindergarten,  he  did  not  study  the  spontaneous 
plays  that  have  gone  on  among  children.  He 
thought  out  a  theory  of  play,  and  made  a  cur- 
riculum of  various  plays  to  produce  certain 
results.  In  consequence,  many  of  the  kinder- 
garten plays  do  not  go  of  themselves.  They 
are  played  only  so  long  as  the  child  is  under  the 
direction  of  the  teacher.  They  have  not  really 
aroused  the  child's  interest  and  desire. 

It  is  said  that  repetition  produces  habit  and 
character,  but  we  know  that  this  is  not  true. 
Desire  produces  habit.  Making  a  boy  brush 
his  teeth  every  morning  for  ten  years  will  not 
make  him  brush  his  teeth  one  more  morning 
if  he  does  not  wish  to  do  it.     Habits  of  action 


PLAY  AND  EDUCATION  183 

and  of  thought  are  the  result  of  the  great  in- 
stinct feelings  moulded  by  tradition  until  they 
grow  into  the  living  structure  of  human  char- 
acter. Educators  have  repeatedly  recognized 
this  fact  when  they  have  said  that  the  end  of 
education  was  not  to  impart  information,  but 
to  arouse  the  desire  for  knowledge.  But  they 
have  not  realized  the  full  implication  of  this 
statement.  Desire  is  aroused  only  along  the 
line  of  the  great  instinct  feelings,  and  it  is 
guided  by  group  tradition.  These  are  also  the 
forces  dominant  in  the  child's  spontaneous  play. 
A  careful  study  of  the  plays  of  children  will 
give  valuable  and  authoritative  suggestions  for 
the  future  development  of  education. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

PLAY  AND  MORAL  GROWTH 

THE  spontaneous  plays  of  children  are 
significant  not  alone  from  the  standpoint 
of  their  relation  to  the  physical  growth 
of  the  child,  but  also  from  the  standpoint  of 
his  gradually  growing  social  relations.  From 
this  point  of  view  the  most  noticeable  fact  about 
the  plays  of  the  baby  is  their  individualistic 
character.  During  the  first  months  of  life 
come  the  spontaneous  kickings  and  all  the  great 
body  movements,  which  form  the  play  life  of 
the  growing  infant.  Then  he  progresses  rapidly 
to  playing  in  more  complicated  ways.  He  learns 
to  pick  up  objects  and  drop  them,  to  play  with 
sand,  blocks,  pieces  of  wood,  sticks,  anything  on 
which  he  can  use  his  fingers.  He  will  take  de- 
light in  running  from  one  place  to  another, 
tossing  his  arms  about  as  he  goes.  Later  he 
acquires  a  desire  to  throw,  and  the  possession 
of  a  ball  brings  delight.  Cutting  with  scissors 
or  a  knife  is  the  basis  of  a  whole  group  of  play 
activities.  Swinging  and  seesaw  in  various 
forms  begin  to  interest  him. 

184 


PLAY  AND   MORAL  GROWTH     185 

All  these  activities  are  individualistic,  and 
there  is  little  if  anything  of  the  game  character 
about  them.  If  very  small  children  are  in- 
duced to  engage  in  a  game  of  tag,  they  show  sur- 
prisingly little  desire  to  avoid  being  "it."  I 
have  even  known  them  to  change  quite  volun- 
tarily, one  assuming  the  part  of  being  "it' 
when  the  other  was  tired.  Games  have  a 
definite  programme  and  conclusion,  which  these 
plays  lack.  Moreover,  the  earlier  activities 
are  common  not  only  to  children,  but  to  the 
higher  animals  as  well. 

The  early  play  period  is  devoted  to  the  ac- 
quirement of  self-mastery  in  its  simplest  sense. 
The  child  is  then  learning  the  fundamental 
neuro-muscular  co-ordinations,  and  is  acquiring 
a  system  of  reflexes.  This  is  to  the  baby  an 
intensely  interesting  process.  He  may  have 
no  desire  to  do  something  better  than  another 
baby  has  done,  but  he  enjoys  doing  something 
that  he  himself  has  done  over  and  over  again. 
If  the  action  of  an  adult  has  called  forth  some 
new  movement  from  a  small  child,  the  insistent 
cry  of  "Do  it  again,"  is  repeated  until  it  becomes 
a  nightmare.  The  child  is  forming  habits  of 
co-ordination. 

This  is  the  time  for  the  acquirement  of  the 
reflexes  that  are  not  only  related  to  the  best 


186        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

life  of  the  child  at  the  period,  but  those  upon 
which  the  righteousness  of  later  life  must  be 
built.  I  refer  to  such  matters  as  truthfulness, 
obedience,  care  of  the  body,  cleanliness.  The 
child  must  also  learn  to  control  his  actions;  he 
is  acquiring  skill  and  mastery.  Loyalty,  de- 
votion of  the  self  to  the  whole,  is  of  small  worth 
if  there  is  no  strong,  well-managed  self  to  devote. 

Interest  in  the  mastery  of  things  and  in  the 
increase  of  power  remains  throughout  life.  It 
may  be  overshadowed  by  larger  interests,  but 
it  is  never  lost.  A  man  who  spends  time  later 
in  life  learning  to  play  the  violin  finds  that  a 
large  part  of  his  enjoyment  comes  from  the  sense 
of  added  dexterity  which  he  gains.  He  can  do 
something  new  with  his  hands;  and  the  sense 
of  additional  power  is  very  pleasant.  People 
who  learn  languages  late  in  life  have  the  same 
feeling.  Even  the  skill  acquired  in  running  a 
new  kind  of  motor  may  produce  it.  I  did  a  little 
reading  in  the  mathematics  of  the  fourth  di- 
mension; at  first  my  mind  refused  utterly  to 
entertain  the  idea;  it  was  confusing,  unimagina- 
ble. But  when  I  began  to  master  the  concep- 
tion, and  to  see  what  could  be  done  with  it, 
the  added  insight  was  a  great  source  of  enjoy- 
ment.    My  sense  of  the  world  was  enlarged. 

Power  over  one's  self,  whether  it  relates  to 


PLAY  AND   MORAL   GROWTH     187 

strength  of  muscles,  skill,  endurance,  mental 
or  moral  achievement,  is  a  source  of  joy.  To  be 
able  to  ride  a  horse  or  a  bicycle,  or  walk  a  tight- 
rope, to  swing  Indian  clubs  three-fourths  time 
with  one  hand  and  two-fourths  with  the  other 
— these  are  small  sources  of  pleasure,  but  very 
real  ones;  and  they  have  a  direct  connection 
with  moral  development.  The  same  growth 
through  new  achievements  will  be  found  in 
the  baby's  play  activities.  He  is  acquiring  the 
mastery  of  his  physical  mechanism:  this  is  re- 
lated to  all  self-control. 

After  mastery  of  the  self  comes  the  competi- 
tive period,  which  means  the  mastery  of  others. 
This  period  begins  at  different  ages  with  dif- 
ferent individuals;  seven  is  perhaps  nearest  the 
average  age.  At  that  time  it  is  no  longer  suffi- 
cient for  the  boy  to  throw  a  stone  better  than 
he  himself  has  thrown  it  before;  he  wants  to 
throw  it  farther  and  straighter  than  the  other 
boy.  This  is  the  beginning  of  competitive 
games — not  team  games,  but  those  involving 
competition  of  one  individual  with  another. 

The  great  group  of  complex  tag  plays  has  its 
place  here.  The  ball  games,  of  which  the  most 
common  are  "One  old  cat"  and  " Rounders''; 
the  marble  games,  varying  in  details  all  over 
the  country;   racing  in  its  various  forms,  throw- 


188         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

ing  in  competition,  jumping  and  pole-vaulting 
in  competition,  and  the  whole  group  of  track 
and  field  sports  acquire  interest  at  this  age. 
There  are  many  throwing  and  running  games 
not  included  on  the  chart,  because  of  the  lack 
of  space:  "Duck  on  the  rock,,!  "Puss  in  the 
corner,'1  "Blind  man's  buff,"  "Leap-frog," 
"Mumble  the  peg."  These  interests  are  not 
lost  in  after-life,  though  they  are  in  many  re- 
spects overshadowed  by  the  great  team  games. 
A  comparison  of  the  intensity  of  interest  felt 
in  most  colleges  concerning  track  athletics  and 
the  football  team  will  illustrate  this  fact. 

A  friend  of  mine  made  a  trip  to  the  South. 
During  his  stay  there  he  won  a  tennis  cham- 
pionship. When  I  saw  him  on  his  return  there 
were  matters  of  serious  import  to  discuss;  he 
was  president  of  the  Public  Schools  Athletic 
League  and  one  of  the  prominent  lawyers  of 
the  city.  But  the  first  fact  he  mentioned, 
which  evidently  gave  him  great  joy,  was  that 
he  had  won  a  tennis  championship  when  he 
was  twenty-five  years  older  than  any  of  his  com- 
petitors. This  zest  in  competition  continues 
to  old  age,  under  many  forms.  Even  scholar- 
ship is  not  merely  the  abstract  pursuit  of  learn- 
ing; it  takes  account  of  competition  and  the 
superiority  of  one  individual  over  another. 


PLAY  AND   MORAL  GROWTH     189 

This  group  represents  higher  interests  than 
those  which  come  at  an  earlier  age;  there  are 
more  complex  intellectual  activities  involved, 
more  complicated  muscular  movements,  a  higher 
degree  of  foresight.  Many  of  the  movements 
of  this  group  lead  to  reflexes  of  a  high  order. 
The  effect  of  tradition  begins  to  make  its  ap- 
pearance here,  for  play  has  become  social  in 
character.  The  particular  games  played  may 
vary  greatly,  far  more  than  do  the  activities 
of  the  first  group.  The  tradition  of  the  group 
of  boys  determines  the  direction  that  the  in- 
terest of  the  individual  shall  take. 

The  morality  developed  during  the  years  of 
competition  is  legal,  individual,  combative. 
The  greatest  indignation  is  felt  by  the  small 
boy  in  that  period  at  any  one  who  violates  his 
rights,  who  will  not  play  by  the  rules  of  the 
game,  who  fails  to  observe  the  law  of  justice. 
For  him  it  is  "an  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for  a 
tooth."  If  a  boy  punches  him,  it  means  a 
punch  back.  That  to  him  is  right,  inalienably 
right.  This  is  the  Old  Testament  period.  It 
is  not  the  time  for  self-sacrifice,  but  the  time 
for  the  establishment  of  justice.  I  do  not  mean 
that  there  should  be  no  co-operation  or  courtesy 
during  this  time,  because  these  must  begin  in 
babyhood   and   continue   throughout   life;    but 


190         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

the  great  achievement  that  must  happen  during 
those  years  is  the  setting  of  the  moral  back- 
bone. This  is  fair  and  that  is  not  fair;  this 
is  cheating  and  that  is  not  cheating. 

A  boy's  sense  of  fair  play  is  at  this  period 
his  most  precious  moral  asset,  and  few  boys 
lack  this  sense.  It  must  be  developed  and 
emphasized  most  strongly  at  this  time.  We 
occasionally  meet  persons  in  whom  many  of 
the  later  virtues  of  self-sacrifice  and  yielding 
to  the  group  have  never  been  balanced  by  this 
earlier  sense  of  fundamental  honor  and  fairness. 
They  have  no  beliefs  to  hold,  no  conception 
of  what  constitutes  justice;  their  attitude  to- 
ward life  is  one  of  continuous  concession  to 
everything.  To  live  wholly  for  others  is  im- 
possible, because  we  must  eat,  sleep,  and  ob- 
tain clothing.  A  man  who  does  not  live  for 
himself,  to  a  certain  extent,  cannot  live  for  his 
family  or  his  community.  In  the  same  way,  a 
man  who  has  not  acquired  a  firm  concept  of 
justice  and  simple  honesty  cannot  make  up  for 
this  deficiency  by  any  of  the  more  complex 
virtues.  He  lacks  the  moral  fibre  that  makes  a 
strong,  well-balanced  character. 

There  is,  however,  a  more  comprehensive 
morality  that  comes  in  with  the  team  games. 
Here   enters   the   element   of  devotion  to  the 


PLAY  AND  MORAL  GROWTH     191 

whole,  of  loyalty  to  a  group.  It  begins  at  about 
the  age  of  twelve,  although,  in  this  case  also, 
there  are  individual  variations.  As  a  rule,  it 
is  quite  futile  to  plan  team  games  for  the  years 
from  seven  to  twelve.  Basket-ball  played  by 
small  children  is  not  team-play.  Every  one 
wants  to  put  the  ball  into  the  basket  himself. 
The  age  at  which  the  boy  will  take  another 
boy's  punishment  without  telling,  when  he  will 
surrender  his  own  will  to  the  will  of  the  gang, 
is  the  age  at  which  a  wider  morality  is  begin- 
ning, although  the  symptoms  of  it  are  not  always 
lovely.  The  boy  who  will  go  back  on  his 
crowd  is  setting  himself  against  the  most  pro- 
found ethical  impulse  that  these  years  can  de- 
velop. This  may  not  be  subtle  ethics;  but  it  is 
a  fundamental  and  primary  fact. 

Team-work  is  the  keynote  of  this  group  of 
games.  And  team-work  is  very  different  from 
simple  co-operation,  as  any  boy  who  has  played 
on  a  team  knows.  A  game  in  which  every 
boy  plays  as  well  as  he  can,  but  without  sacri- 
ficing himself  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  is  not 
team-work.  Rowing,  even  when  done  by  a 
group,  is  not  team-work  in  its  most  complex 
sense.  One  member  does  not  suffer  loss  in 
order  that  his  side  may  win.  The  sacrifice-hit 
in  baseball  is  one  instance  of  the  kind  of  play 


192        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

demanded  for  the  good  of  the  team.  The  mem- 
bers of  the  group  work  for  the  same  end,  but 
they  do  not  all  do  the  same  thing.  Co-ordina- 
tion and  self-sacrifice  are  the  two  major  ele- 
ments of  this  group  of  games.  These  games 
also  involve  the  pursuit  of  a  distant  end  by 
means  of  definite  steps,  in  a  more  or  less  definite 
programme.  They  involve  obedience  to  a 
leader,  even  when  he  is  mistaken.  They  involve 
also  a  higher  form  of  self-mastery  than  any  pre- 
ceding group,  for  they  demand  the  despising 
of  pain  and  individual  discomfort  for  the  sake 
of  the  cause.  These  qualities  are  the  begin- 
ning of  the  altruism  on  which  a  complex  civiliza- 
tion must  depend. 

A  study  made  of  some  children  who  had  been 
brought  up  apart  from  others  and  had  never 
learned  to  play  team  games  showed  some 
significant  facts.  They  were  children  of  mis- 
sionaries living  with  their  parents  in  foreign 
lands.  Their  home  environment  was  of  the 
best,  but  having  had  no  other  children  with 
whom  they  could  play,  they  had  played  only 
with  their  parents.  When  the  period  of  for- 
eign residence  had  extended  to  sixteen  years  for 
any  child,  it  was  observed  that  he  did  not  un- 
derstand the  significance  of  team-play.  These 
children  did  not  learn  the  tremendous  lesson  of 


PLAY  AND  MORAL  GROWTH     193 

the  subordination  of  the  individual  to  the  group. 
They  had  learned  the  lessons  of  individual 
righteousness,  but  had  failed  to  acquire  ideas 
of  social  righteousness,  which  do  not  come 
through  studying  a  book,  but  through  tradi- 
tion brought  to  fruition  by  action. 

One  of  the  great  lessons  that  boys  must  learn 
is  that  there  is  something  larger  than  the  in- 
dividual self.  It  is  pleasant  when  playing 
basket-ball  to  make  a  brilliant  play  for  oneself; 
it  is  pleasant  to  be  the  hero  who  makes  the 
home  run  in  baseball.  But  no  team  that  is 
made  up  of  individuals  looking  for  their  own 
glory  ever  wins  in  any  of  the  great  collegiate 
sports — any  more  than  a  community  can  suc- 
ceed where  each  citizen  works  solely  for  per- 
sonal interest.  This  lesson  the  boy  must  learn 
by  experience;  and  he  learns  it,  partly  at 
least,  in  playing  a  team  game.  If  a  boy  plays 
baseball  and  does  not  know  the  difference  be- 
tween playing  for  himself  and  playing  for  the 
team,  his  mates  will  teach  him  very  promptly 
and  with  more  energy  than  any  other  method 
could  provide. 

For  play  not  only  expresses  the  growing  moral 
standards  of  the  boy,  it  is  also  a  great  force  in 
the  development  of  these  standards.  The  so- 
cial traditions  expressed  by  the  play  of  a  group 


194         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

of  boys  has  a  far  more  powerful  effect  in  deter- 
mining the  standards  of  individual  members 
than  has  parental  authority  or  reasoning.  The 
team  games  develop  respect  for  law,  in  a  rudi- 
mentary form,  to  be  sure,  but  in  a  form  capable 
of  growth.  The  boy  that  is  caught  cheating 
or  lying  to  his  own  crowd  is  ostracized.  He 
may  he  to  others,  to  his  teachers  or  parents, 
but  he  cannot  lie  to  his  mates  with  impunity. 
The  boy  learns  then  that  while  it  is  very  desira- 
ble to  win,  it  is  worse  to  win  and  forfeit  public 
favor  than  not  to  win  at  all.  The  essential 
rules,  even  of  later  life,  are  not  written  in  the 
statute-books;  they  are  expressed  in  public 
opinion. 

When  the  instinct  for  the  gang  develops,  par- 
tisanship may  become  very  violent.  This  may 
take  various  forms.  There  may  be  clubs  or 
secret  societies.  But  whatever  the  form  of  the 
combination,  the  gang  is  the  group  of  boys 
who  hang  together,  who  sink  their  individuality 
in  the  crowd,  who  will  all  fight  together  if  any 
member  is  attacked,  who  do  for  the  group 
what  they  would  not  do  for  themselves;  they 
feel  an  allegiance  to  a  cause  greater  than  they 
themselves.  Boys'  gangs  may  very  well  do 
better  than  to  fight  the  policemen,  as  they  do 
in  the  city  of  New  York.     But  whether  its  oc- 


PLAY  AND   MORAL  GROWTH     195 

cupations  are  good  or  bad  with  reference  to  so- 
ciety, from  the  standpoint  of  the  gang  itself 
loyalty  is  the  fundamental  virtue. 

This  loyalty  developed  out  of  play  relations 
and  enforced  through  play  traditions  may  or 
may  not  grow  into  a  wider  altruism  truly  moral 
in  that  it  is  truly  and  completely  social.  The 
direction  of  development  will  depend  largely 
upon  the  nature  of  the  group  traditions  trans- 
mitted through  play.  Here  is  the  opportunity 
for  the  teacher  who  can  come  into  play  as  a 
member,  rather  than  as  a  director.  When 
Judge  Lindsey  put  his  arm  about  a  boy  and 
went  out  to  find  what  the  shack  was  that  the 
boy  wanted,  and  for  which  he  stole  the  lumber, 
and  why  he  wanted  the  sand — he  gave  some- 
thing besides  sympathy,  although  that  was 
profound;  there  was  something  else  than  be- 
lief in  the  boy,  although  that  was  fundamental. 
If  I  understand  that  boy  at  all,  there  arose  in 
him  a  consciousness  that  he  had  come  into 
"playing  the  game"  with  the  man. 

There  is  great  need  in  the  guidance  of  free 
play  for  teachers  who  know  what  play  is,  who 
understand  the  force  of  the  instinct  feelings  in- 
volved and  the  way  in  which  play  traditions 
are  formed.  Forced  play  does  not  change 
character.     Free   play,   even   though   there   be 


196        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

an  adult  playing,  has  the  power  of  modifying 
character  profoundly.  And  the  master  of  the 
school  who  can  go  out  on  the  grounds  and  play 
genuinely  with  his  boys,  and  be  the  medium  of 
carrying  high  athletic  traditions,  is  moulding 
instinct  feeling  into  the  fine  form  of  character. 


CHAPTER   XV 

INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION  IN  PLAY 

IT  is  a  striking  fact  that  games  built  on  the 
same  fundamental  instinct  feelings  differ 
among  different  nations.  Even  in  the  case 
of  two  peoples  as  closely  related  as  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  American  we  find  this  difference. 
Cricket  and  soccer  football  are  typical  English 
games,  baseball  and  American  football  typical 
American  games.  Soccer  football  is  the  open 
game  in  which  the  ball  is  kicked,  and  it  is  differ- 
ent from  our  football.  Cricket  and  baseball 
also  differ,  not  merely  in  superficial  rules,  but 
in  the  type  of  play  demanded.  The  ball  is  in 
both  cases  of  the  same  shape.  Both  games  are 
played  on  a  flat  turf.  The  difference  is  not 
physiological.  In  both  games  we  have  the  ac- 
tivities of  running,  catching,  and  striking.  Both 
depend  upon  the  ability  to  throw  hard  and 
straight,  to  judge  quickly,  and  to  make  accurate 
muscular  co-ordinations. 

The  first  noticeable  characteristic  of  a  cricket 
match  to  an  American  is  the  length  of  time  it 
takes.     The  movement   of  cricket  is   slow;    a 

197 


198         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

good  match  is  never  played  in  a  day.  One 
person  may  make  a  hundred  runs.  The  move- 
ment of  baseball,  on  the  other  hand,  is  rapid; 
a  game  takes  at  most  a  few  hours.  The  pitch- 
ing and  catching,  the  running  for  bases,  the  sides 
coming  in  and  going  out — these  happenings 
follow  in  quick  succession.  Baseball  is  the  game 
of  an  impatient  man;  it  is  a  driving,  restless, 
pushing  game.  It  allows  no  pauses.  Cricket 
is  a  leisurely,  gentlemanly,  patient,  long-con- 
tinued game.  It  requires  the  same  kind  of  skill 
as  baseball,  but  not  the  same  constant  activity. 
These  differences  seem  to  point  to  basal  differ- 
ences between  English  and  American  life. 

The  origin  of  baseball  is  uncertain.  Some 
authorities  believe  that  it  grew  out  of  "Round- 
ers," others  that  it  came  from  "One  old  cat." 
But  whatever  its  starting  point,  baseball  has 
become  the  great  American  game,  because  it 
expresses  American  feeling,  as  cricket  is  the  great 
English  game,  because  it  expresses  English  feel- 
ing. And  if  we  should  find  that  social  traditions 
expressed  in  play  are  among  the  great  moulders 
of  character,  we  must  expect  that  the  boy  who 
plays  baseball  will  be  shaped,  to  that  extent,  to- 
ward American  life,  and  the  boy  who  plays 
cricket  toward  English  life. 

It  seems  evident  from  this  fact  that  there  is 


INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION      199 

some  other  factor  in  play  besides  the  instinctive 
desire  to  throw,  run,  and  perform  various  other 
acts.  If  our  games  were  based  on  instinct  feel- 
ings alone,  unmodified  by  any  other  force,  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  reason  for  these  wide  differ- 
ences in  games  which  call  for  the  same  physi- 
ological co-ordinations.  It  would  seem,  more- 
over, that  the  children  of  every  generation  would 
be  able  to  invent  all  their  games  afresh  from 
their  own  developing  instincts,  that  a  boy  might 
be  able  to  play  baseball  without  ever  seeing 
the  game  played,  simply  because  he  had  the  set 
of  instinct  feelings  that  go  into  the  playing  of 
ball. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  opinions  not  very  much 
at  variance  with  this  view-point  have  been  held. 
In  a  warm  debate  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives with  reference  to  an  appropriation  for  play- 
grounds in  the  city  of  Washington,  one  con- 
gressman said  that  it  was  "as  necessary  and 
important  to  teach  children  to  play  as  to  teach 
the  lambs  to  gambol  on  the  sunny  hillsides." 
He  expressed  a  wide-spread  opinion  that  all 
play  is  alike,  that  children  can  be  trusted  to 
manufacture  their  own  games. 

But  it  is  not  true  even  of  animals  that  they 
play  without  being  taught.  There  are,  it  is 
true,  some  instincts  of  life  which  seem  perfect 


200         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

at  birth  and  act  without  reference  to  social  in- 
heritance or  tradition.  When  a  cocoon  hatches 
into  a  butterfly,  it  has  a  set  of  full-fledged  re- 
flexes. It  needs  no  experience;  it  flies  as  well 
at  first  as  later.  An  instinct  of  this  kind  re- 
mains unchanged  by  teaching;  it  is  not  plastic. 
But  as  we  come  higher  in  the  animal  scale, 
many  instincts  lose  their  fixed  character. 

Professor  Scott  of  Princeton  University  ex- 
perimented extensively  with  reference  to  the 
extent  to  which  the  instincts  of  young  birds 
develop  without  the  aid  given  by  the  example 
of  their  parents.  He  raised  blackbirds  from 
the  eggs,  and  gave  them  no  opportunity  to 
come  in  contact  with  older  birds  of  their  kind. 
They  had  throats  like  those  of  other  blackbirds, 
but  they  never  heard  the  song  of  their  species. 
The  only  noise  they  heard,  which  their  throats 
were  adapted  to  copying,  was  the  crowing  of  a 
near-by  bantam  rooster.  The  result  was  that 
the  young  blackbirds  came  as  near  giving  a 
crow  like  that  of  the  bantam  rooster  as  the 
nature  of  their  throats  permitted.  They  had 
an  instinct  to  make  a  noise,  but  that  instinct 
developed  through  imitation.  The  song  of  the 
meadow-lark  and  the  song-sparrow  varies  so 
much  in  different  parts  of  our  land  that  it  is 
possible  to  identify  birds  from  various  sections 


INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION      201 

by  the  character  of  their  song.  It  seems  proba- 
ble that  this  is  attributable  to  the  fact  that  the 
young  copy  their  song  from  the  old  birds,  and 
that  variations  in  different  localities  perpet- 
uate themselves,  passing  along  from  bird  to 
bird. 

Scotch  terriers  have  a  peculiar  way  of  grasp- 
ing the  hind  leg  of  an  opponent  in  a  fight.  This 
has  been  said  to  be  instinctive;  but  careful 
observers  have  noticed  that  Scotch  terriers  not 
brought  up  with  Scotch  terriers  do  not  learn  this 
trick.  It  is  acquired  by  dogs  through  playing 
with  the  mother,  and,  in  common  with  the  main 
habits  of  every  dog,  is  passed  along  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  by  social  inheritance. 
The  otter  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  swimmers 
among  land  animals,  and  it  would  seem  as  if 
its  instincts  must  be  adapted  to  water.  Yet 
the  young  otter  dreads  the  water,  and  it  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  that  it  shall  learn  to  swim,  to 
entice  it  into  the  river  on  the  back  of  its  mother, 
who  then  plunges  under.  The  animal  is  thus 
forced  to  swim  against  its  will;  but,  having 
acquired  the  habit,  it  soon  learns  to  enjoy  it. 

Among  savage  tribes,  children  play  constantly 
in  the  presence  of  older  children  and  their 
parents.  Initiation  ceremonies  are  common 
among  all  primitive  peoples.     The  boys  to  be 


202        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

initiated  into  the  race  ceremonies  of  their  kind 
are  taken  apart  for  a  month,  or  series  of  months, 
to  learn  tribal  secrets,  the  ancestral  mode  of 
worship,  the  sacred  language.  The  boys  do 
not  perform  these  ceremonies  by  themselves. 
The  rites  are  in  charge  of  some  man  who  knows 
them  all,  and  who  passes  along  to  the  boys  this 
precious  inheritance  of  social  tradition  that 
characterizes  their  people  and  makes  them 
different  from  other  tribes. 

Social  tradition  is  the  great  shaping  force  in 
most  of  our  racial  differences.  There  is  in  all 
babies  the  instinctive  tendency  to  make  sounds, 
but  the  language  that  the  baby  will  talk  depends 
on  the  social  inheritance  into  which  he  comes. 
All  peoples  have  an  instinctive  feeling  for  shel- 
ter, but  the  houses  built  are  not  all  of  one  type. 
Why  do  we  have  standard  loaves  of  bread? 
The  Japanese  have  other  kinds  of  loaves.  Why 
do  men  wear  one  type  of  hat  and  women  an- 
other? Whether  it  is  the  form  of  language 
we  use,  the  shape  of  a  loaf  of  bread,  the  coloring 
of  a  hat,  the  way  men  may  speak  to  each  other 
and  women  may  speak  to  each  other — all  these 
things  are  determined  not  by  actual  physical 
heredity,  but  by  the  no  less  firm  grasp  of  social 
heredity.  We  may  be  capable,  free  individuals, 
but  we  are  held  by  laws  of  tradition  which  de- 


INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION      203 

termine  the  direction  in  which  our  feelings  shall 
express  themselves,  what  we  may  do  and  what 
we  may  not  do. 

We  are  told  that  the  graduates  of  Yale  differ 
from  the  graduates  of  Harvard  in  certain  fun- 
damental respects.  If  this  is  true,  the  difference 
is  not  attributable  to  the  fact  that  the  Harvard 
professors  know  more  Latin  than  do  the  Yale 
professors,  or  that  the  Yale  professors  are  better 
informed  on  mathematics,  philosophy,  chem- 
istry, or  physics,  or  any  other  subject  what- 
ever. Neither  is  it  true  that  such  differences 
in  the  character  of  the  students  coming  from 
these  two  institutions  are  traceable  to  differ- 
ences in  the  organization  of  the  institutions. 
The  character  of  the  boy  that  is  being  shaped 
into  the  character  of  the  man  is  developed 
largely  by  social  traditions,  passed  along  from 
generation  to  generation  of  student  life.  We 
are  told  that  in  the  great  public  schools  of  Eng- 
land— Rugby,  Harrow,  and  Eton — there  are 
differences  in  standards  and  ideals,  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  students,  in  the  way  they  look  at 
life.  These  are  arrived  at  by  the  way  in  which 
the  great  school  traditions  take  the  raw  material 
of  life  and  shape  it  constantly  and  steadily  into 
the  form  that  is  characteristic  of  that  institution. 
Civilized  life  is  something  other  than  mere  in- 


204        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

dividual  development;  it  is  the  force  of  social 
tradition  that  makes  civilized  life  possible. 

These  same  agencies  determine  the  form  of 
children's  plays.  A  boy  has  a  tendency  to  run 
and  throw,  but  the  particular  running  and  throw- 
ing games  he  will  play  are  determined  by  the 
traditions  of  his  people.  Games  come  down 
without  essential  change  in  any  stable  com- 
munity, because  they  are  passed  from  child  to 
child,  from  the  older  to  the  younger.  When 
we  speak  of  the  traditions  active  in  play,  we  are 
speaking  of  one  of  the  great  controlling  forces 
in  all  human  action.  Authority  and  reason  are 
impotent  compared  with  tradition.  The  great 
tragedies  of  adult  life  are  produced  when  reason 
comes  in  conflict  with  tradition,  when  certain 
actions  seem  rational  and  other  actions  are  in 
accord  with  social  conventions.  The  same  trag- 
edy comes  to  every  boy  when  the  commands  of 
his  parents  oppose  the  traditions  of  the  gang. 
It  is  the  exceptional  boy  who  does  not  feel  the 
pull  of  gang  custom  more  strongly  than  the 
command  of  authority.  This  holds  also  for  us 
as  adults.  Whatever  we  may  be  told  about  the 
unhygienic  nature  of  modern  clothing,  for  in- 
stance, we  shall  hardly  be  prevailed  upon  to 
change  our  costumes  immediately  in  any  striking 
manner.     We  prefer  to  do  as  the  crowd  does. 


INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION      205 

The  way  to  influence  play  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  that  takes  place  through 
play  is  to  combine  the  instinct  feelings  and  the 
play  traditions  instead  of  opposing  them. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  examples  of  the 
intelligent  use  and  direction  of  the  play  in- 
stinct feelings  is  an  experiment  carried  on  by 
Mr.  Ernest  Thompson  Seton.  He  has  an  es- 
tablishment of  Indian  tribes  for  boys.  All  the 
things  that  Indians  do  are  done  by  the  boys. 
They  have  their  mode  of  government,  laws, 
and  a  totem-pole.  The  boys  get  their  names 
in  the  manner  in  wThich  the  Indians  got  theirs, 
from  their  looks  or  from  something  they  have 
accomplished.  They  are  taught  to  make  tepees. 
They  have  games  of  deer  and  bear  hunts. 
The  bear  in  these  cases  is  a  boy  with  a  balloon 
on  his  back.  There  are  three  dens  about  a 
hundred  yards  apart  to  which  the  bear  can  re- 
treat. Of  course,  as  there  are  three  caves,  the 
hunter  does  not  know  in  which  one  the  bear  may 
be  hiding.  In  hunting  him  the  boys  have  clubs 
made  of  light  sticks  wTound  with  straw,  with 
which  they  can  hit  without  hurting.  If  a  boy 
can  whack  the  balloon  and  break  it,  he  has  killed 
the  bear.  There  is  also  a  system  of  scouting,  of 
man  hunting,  and  rabbit  hunting.  There  are 
many  honors — small  and  large — for  boys  under 


206         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

fourteen  years  old.  They  receive  feathers  for 
athletic  prowess — not  for  beating  some  one  else, 
but  for  attaining  some  absolute  record. 

The  boys  are  fascinated  with  this  Indian 
play.  They  will  submit  to  a  rigid  system  of 
discipline,  as  rigid  as  that  of  boys  in  gangs, 
and  yet  not  feel  that  they  are  under  discipline 
at  all.  There  are  many  hundreds  now  of  these 
tribes  of  "Indians'  organized  in'  connection 
with  Mr.  Seton's  movement.  The  organization 
is  an  adaptation  of  the  outdoor  life  of  Indians 
to  the  conditions  of  the  boy,  and  is  the  outcome 
of  long  years  of  experiment.  Mr.  Seton  has 
learned  how  to  make  use  of  the  instinctive  de- 
sires of  the  boy  in  reinforcing  the  traditions  and 
standards  which  he  wishes  to  impress.  He  has 
learned  the  proper  method  of  play  control. 

All  play  is  controlled  in  one  way  or  another. 
Only  the  child  who  is  absolutely  alone  is  un- 
governed  by  the  rules  of  the  game.  When 
children  play  tag,  no  child  is  free  to  do  as  he 
pleases.  The  game  is  controlled  by  mutual 
consent.  The  rigor  demanded  by  this  control 
may  exceed  any  imposed  by  external  authority. 
The  supervision  of  older  children  over  younger, 
of  mothers  over  their  children,  of  the  whole 
community  over  the  young,  is  a  well-nigh  uni- 
versal fact.     The  community  is  relatively  safe 


INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION      207 

from  moral  disaster  as  long  as  the  young  people 
play  and  dance  in  the  presence  of  their  elders; 
but  society  is  in  danger  whenever  the  young  go 
off  by  themselves  unsupervised,  for  then  the 
control  which  is  inevitable  will  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  inexperienced  or  even  of  the  vicious. 

One  of  my  friends  has  a  boy  about  nine  years 
old,  with  whom  from  his  birth  the  doctrine  of 
"hands  off'  has  been  carried  out.  In  conse- 
quence he  is  a  nuisance  to  himself,  to  his  mother, 
his  father,  and  to  all  their  friends  old  and  young. 
The  boy's  instinct  feelings  have  never  been 
curbed,  and  control  has  not  been  acquired. 
He  has  never  learned  what  it  means  to  come 
into  conflict  with  another  personality  and  be 
answered  back  in  kind.  He  has  learned  that 
he  can  do  anything  he  pleases  with  people,  and 
that  there  are  no  consequences.  To  be  sure, 
he  knows  that  if  he  puts  his  hand  into  a  flame 
he  will  be  burned;  but  he  has  not  been  allowed 
to  learn  that  if  he  puts  his  hand  against  another 
individual,  he  will  also  be  burned.  The  par- 
ents of  that  boy  have  done  him  incalculable 
harm,  because  they  have  not  allowed  him  to 
acquire  the  great  fundamental  lessons  of  human 
relationships.  That  boy  will  go  to  college,  and 
there  he  will  learn  a  great  deal. 

Aside  from  the  influence  of  older  people  in 


208        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

the  playing  of  games,  the  child  learns  much 
through  association  with  his  playmates.  He  is 
not  coming  into  a  world  of  separate  individuals, 
but  into  a  world  of  social  relationships,  and 
play  is  the  great  carrier  of  social  traditions. 
As  soon  as  one  child  begins  to  play  with  another, 
that  other  necessarily  limits  his  freedom.  And 
the  limitations  are  themselves  sources  for  the 
increase  of  enjoyment.  The  instinctive  desires 
to  run,  throw,  strike,  begin  to  be  shaped  in 
accordance  with  the  "rules  of  the  game."  This 
shaping  means  an  increase  of  power,  because  it 
brings  increased  deflniteness  and  correspondence 
with  the  social  environment.  The  idea  of  free 
play  unmodified  by  playmates,  parents,  and 
teachers  is  a  truly  pernicious  one. 

The  force  of  social  tradition  operating  through 
play  has  sometimes  been  deplored.  It  is  said 
that  blind  imitation  detracts  from  individuality, 
and  that  children  are  deprived  of  all  initiative 
by  stimulating  their  desire  to  follow  an  example. 
But  unconscious  imitation  is  not  a  blind  force; 
it  is  very  selective.  When  a  new  football 
player  comes  to  town,  nine  out  of  ten  of  the 
boys  of  the  town  will  at  once  copy  him  as  nearly 
as  they  can  in  attitude  of  body,  expression  of 
face,  tilt  of  hat  or  cap.  But  when  a  boy  walks 
down  the  street  and  sees  a  willow-tree  waving 


INSTINCT  AND  TRADITION      209 

its  branches,  he  does  not  stand  and  balance 
and  commence  imitating  the  willow-tree.  There 
is  something  in  the  football  player  that  makes 
the  boy  want  to  imitate,  something  that  re- 
sponds to  his  ideal,  that  arouses  a  desire  in  him 
to  be  like  his  kind.  There  is  nothing  in  the  tree 
to  call  forth  a  similar  stimulus.  Expose  a 
thousand  boys  to  the  power  of  music,  and  only 
those  who  have  special  capacity  for  music  will 
respond.  This  imitation,  conscious  of  kind, 
enormously  selective,  apparently  making  for 
likeness,  is  really  an  agency  which  brings  out 
individual  differences. 

One  other  objection  is  frequently  made  to 
the  conscious  use  of  play  as  a  carrier  of  tradi- 
tion. We  are  told  that  it  is  ' unnatural'  to 
interfere  with  children,  that  they  must  be  left 
to  develop  freely  according  to  their  ' nature.' : 
But  the  instinctive  desire  to  teach  is  as  natural 
as  any  other  desire.  The  father  wants  to  teach 
his  boy  to  throw,  to  shoot  with  the  bow,  to 
hunt,  to  paddle,  to  swim.  The  mother  instinc- 
tively desires  to  take  the  baby  in  her  arms  and 
to  sing  to  it.  These  feelings  are  as  natural  as 
any  other  feelings.  If  human  instincts  are  to 
be  allowed  to  develop  freely,  then  the  mother 
and  father  instincts  must  also  be  considered. 

There  is  apt  to  be  great  confusion  as  to  what 


210         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

is  natural.  We  hear  of  a  natural  food  cult 
which  claims  that  since  man's  body  grew  up 
under  conditions  of  nature,  the  special  prepa- 
ration of  food  by  cooking,  which  man  himself 
has  developed,  is  artificial,  and  therefore  un- 
desirable. In  this  narrow  sense  of  the  word 
natural,  the  best  possessions  of  human  kind  are 
unnatural.  The  wearing  of  garments  is  arti- 
ficial; the  building  of  houses  is  wholly  unnatural; 
it  would  be  natural  to  crawl  into  caves.  The 
ventilation  of  houses  is  unnatural;  heating  is 
exceedingly  unnatural.  Education  is,  of  course, 
above  all  unnatural — as  morals  are  unnatural. 

But  in  the  wider  sense  of  the  word,  we  must 
consider  natural  those  things  which  have  sur- 
vived and  approved  themselves  in  the  course 
of  evolution.  We  have  reached  that  stage  of 
development  where  human  affairs  are  being 
increasingly  directed  by  conscious  effort.  That 
state  of  control  is  natural  now  for  the  human 
race.  We  can  no  longer  rely  wholly  upon  the 
blind  forces  of  instinct,  but  must  deliberately 
shape  those  instincts  so  that  they  shall  operate 
in  accord  with  general  human  needs  and  be  of 
service  to  mankind. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

PLAY  AND  OUR  CHANGING 
CIVILIZATION 

SOME  years  ago  the  University  of  Mis- 
souri introduced  a  bill  in  the  State  Legis- 
lature asking  for  $100,000  for  the  building 
and  equipment  of  a  gymnasium.  The  hard- 
headed,  conservative  legislators  laughed  at  the 
proposal.  "Why  cannot  those  boys  saw  wood 
for  exercise,  as  we  did?"  they  asked.  The  rep- 
resentatives of  the  State  university  waited  un- 
til the  meeting  of  the  next  legislature  and  in- 
troduced another  bill  asking  for  $200,000  for 
the  erection  and  equipment  of  a  plant  for  saw- 
ing wood.  It  was  shown  that  the  wood  had  to 
be  brought  from  so  great  a  distance,  and  the 
loss  occasioned  by  hand-sawing  instead  of 
machinery  would  be  so  large,  that  at  least  as 
great  an  endowment  as  asked  for  was  neces- 
sary. The  legislators  had  forgotten  the  fact 
that  the  conditions  in  which  they  were  brought 
up  have  passed  away,  and  that  it  is  no  longer 
possible  to  educate  a  boy  by  muscular  work, 

as  muscles  do  not  do  the  great  work  of  the  world 

211 


212        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

to-day.  They  voted  the  $1005000  asked  for  the 
gymnasium. 

The  foregoing  illustrates  only  one  aspect  of 
the  change  that  has  come  over  modern  life. 
The  increasing  urbanization  of  our  population 
is  another  factor  in  the  problems  of  our  day. 
We  are  fast  becoming  a  city  people.  We  have 
tried  the  experiment  of  exporting  the  dwellers 
in  the  crowded  tenements.  But  while  we  are 
driving  them  out  of  one  slum,  they  return  to 
another.  Statistics  tell  most  convincingly  the 
growth  of  cities.  In  1790  3.3  per  cent  of  the 
people  in  the  United  States  lived  in  cities  of 
8,000  population  and  upward.  To-day,  more 
than  33  per  cent  live  in  cities  of  the  same  class. 
This  means  not  only  that  the  cities  are  growing 
with  phenomenal  rapidity,  but  that  the  total 
population  growth  of  our  country  during  the 
past  three  censuses  has  been  almost  entirely  an 
urban  growth.  I  was  told  that  within  a  single 
generation  the  average  country  school  in  Illinois 
had  shrunk  from  seventy-eight  to  thirty-eight 
pupils. 

A  still  larger  proportion  of  our  population 
is  bound  to  become  urbanized.  It  is  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  our  industrial  civilization, 
where  the  processes  of  working  up  material 
require  vastly  more  individuals  than  those  of 


PLAY  AND  OUR  CIVILIZATION    213 

raw  production.  There  is  nothing  to  gain  and 
everything  to  lose  through  an  attitude  of  hos- 
tility to  this  tendency.  So  long  as  we  try  to 
stand  out  against  it,  planting  ourselves  on  an 
old  civilization,  championing  to  the  last  ditch 
those  conditions  that  are  being  surely  under- 
mined and  swept  away,  we  are  fighting  against 
the  stars  in  their  courses.  To  talk  of  "  three 
acres  and  liberty'  for  our  children  is  futile. 
We  must  accept  the  city  for  what  it  is,  neces- 
sary, artificial,  congested,  nervously  organized; 
and  we  must  discover  how  to  make  these  very 
traits  count  in  upward  development.  Not  by 
opposing  inevitable  tendencies,  but  by  discover- 
ing their  possibilities  for  good  and  pushing  these 
to  their  logical  issues  shall  we  aid  in  the  solution 
of  our  greatest  social  problem. 

For  this  problem  is  not  merely  one  of  the  city. 
This  increasing  urbanization  is  but  one  symptom 
of  the  change  going  on  everywhere,  a  change  in 
the  direction  of  greater  organization  and  speciali- 
zation. It  is  not  a  question  of  city  or  country, 
as  we  are  tempted  to  think  when  we  compare 
the  farm  of  a  past  age  with  the  city  of  the  pres- 
ent. The  farm  has  become  as  man-made  as 
the  city;  it  is  in  many  respects  as  specialized 
in  activity.  Whole  farms  are  given  over  to  the 
raising  of  violets,  whole  sections  of  the  coun- 


214         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

try  to  the  raising  of  wheat.  The  change  is  one 
in  the  texture  of  modern  life.  It  makes  no  dif- 
ference whether  a  boy's  father  runs  a  trolley- 
car,  is  president  of  a  bank,  owns  a  wheat-farm, 
sells  goods  behind  a  counter — the  work  of  the 
modern  man,  except  in  rare  cases,  is  such  that 
it  is  impossible  for  the  boy  to  serve  an  appren- 
ticeship to  life's  tasks  by  working  with  his 
father.  Yet  in  that  way  the  boys  of  an  earlier 
generation  gained  their  physical  power,  health, 
and  moral  responsibility. 

The  farms  in  the  old  days  were  of  the  all- 
around  character.  The  children  were  obliged 
to  help  their  parents  spin  the  thread.  They 
wove,  dyed,  cut  out  the  cloth.  They  made  the 
garments;  they  even  made  the  patterns.  They 
made  their  hats,  and  sometimes  even  their 
shoes.  They  made  their  farming  utensils,  both 
of  wood  and  iron.  The  boy  thus  secured  a 
training  such  as  is  given  in  no  manual  training 
school  to-day.  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the 
pleasurable  side  of  childhood,  for  I  am  well 
aware  that  a  boy's  hands  will  blister  much  more 
quickly  on  a  hoe  handle  than  on  a  baseball  bat. 
But  a  hoe  handle  is  an  instrument  of  exercise  of 
a  genuine  sort,  and  it  does  result  in  power  of 
the  arms  and  back,  in  ability  to  digest  food. 
We  have  taken  from  our  boys  not  merely  the 


PLAY  AND   OUR  CIVILIZATION    215 

work,  but  the  physical  and  moral  results  that 
come  from  it. 

During  a  brief  period  it  was  my  privilege  and 
obligation  to  work  on  a  farm.  I  arose  at  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  to  get  the  cows,  of  which 
I  milked  seven  twice  a  day.  That  was  exer- 
cise for  the  hands.  I  had  to  care  for  the  milk 
and  wash  the  cans.  Then  came  the  regular 
farm  work.  I  was  not  old  enough  to  plough, 
but  I  had  to  handle  a  horse  rake,  and  there 
were  many  chores.  I  helped  to  fill  the  wood- 
shed, to  build  stone  and  wooden  fences,  and  to 
dig  out  woodchucks.  I  helped  thresh  the  wheat 
and  brought  it  in,  husked  the  corn,  and  did  the 
other  jobs  that  are  to  be  done  on  an  all-around 
farm.  My  boy  cannot  do  these  things  at  home; 
there  is  no  opportunity  for  him. 

In  still  other  ways  has  the  relation  of  the 
child  to  the  community  been  modified.  The 
family  has  hitherto  always  been  the  chief  unit 
of  society.  But  during  the  past  century  the 
relation  of  the  family  to  society  has  changed 
profoundly  in  all  civilized  communities.  Many 
functions  of  the  old  family  unit  are  now  being 
performed  by  the  community  in  other  and 
mainly  better  ways.  The  features  of  this  change 
most  vital  to  our  subject  are  disclosed  in  the 
statement  that  until  recently  the  home  has  been 


216        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

the  place  (a)  where  children  learned  to  work 
with  their  parents,  (b)  where  they  secured  most 
of  their  education,  (c)  where  they  obtained  their 
religious  and  moral  training,  (d)  where  they 
centred  most  of  their  social  life. 

A  great  deal  of  work  has  gone  out  of  the  home. 
Everywhere  the  family  is  ceasing  to  be  the  centre 
of  the  industries  of  the  world.  Walking  behind 
one  of  the  great  steam  gang-ploughs  drawing 
sixteen  ploughs,  each  cutting  three  inches  deep 
and  sixteen  inches  wide,  one  can  see  that  there 
is  no  place  here  for  the  boy  to  take  the  lines  of 
the  horses  and  to  co-operate  with  his  father. 
Articles  are  now  made  in  the  shop  or  the  fac- 
tory, and  not  in  the  home.  The  boy  can  no 
longer  help  his  father  in  the  practice  of  trades. 
He  has  no  chance  to  make  things,  no  tools  to 
make  things  with,  no  materials  out  of  which 
to  make  them,  and  no  place  to  keep  any  things 
he  might  make.  The  modern  home  affords  no 
opportunity  for  the  growing  boy  to  exercise  his 
constructive  impulses  in  a  wholesome  way. 

The  situation  is  just  as  difficult  for  the  girl. 
It  has  been  one  of  the  problems  in  our  family 
to  discover  necessary,  useful  work  for  our  girls; 
it  is  hard  to  find  work  that  cannot  be  done 
better  by  some  one  else;  and  it  is  not  only  hard, 
but  unjust,  to  require  girls  to  do  work    merely 


PLAY  AND  OUR  CIVILIZATION    217 

for  the  sake  of  doing  it.  We  are  willing  to  give 
help  where  help  is  needed,  but  to  work  for  the 
sake  of  its  subjective  effect  alone  gives  no  per- 
manent solution  of  the  problem.  And  a  large 
part  of  the  necessary  work,  even  of  women,  is 
leaving  the  home.  Few  people  to-day  bake 
their  own  bread;  many  no  longer  bake  even 
their  own  cake.  Underwear  is  no  longer  made 
in  the  house.  Outside  clothing  is  usually  made 
away  from  the  home. 

Education  is  leaving  the  home.  Practically 
all  the  formal  instruction  that  children  now  re- 
ceive is  given  in  school.  In  the  old  days  there 
were  schools,  to  be  sure,  but  they  did  not  begin 
so  early,  nor  did  they  last  so  many  months  out 
of  the  year,  nor  so  many  years  out  of  the  chil- 
dren's lives.  The  school  which  takes  all  the 
children  of  the  country  from  the  ages  of  six  to 
fourteen  and  compels  them  under  penalty  to  be 
incarcerated  in  the  schoolroom  from  nine  o'clock 
in  the  morning  until  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, five  days  a  week  for  nine  or  ten  months 
in  the  year,  is  a  new  institution  and  has  mate- 
rially altered  the  lives  of  children.  No  change 
equal  in  magnitude  has  ever  occurred  in  the 
lives  of  the  young  of  any  other  living  species. 

The  home  is  no  longer  the  centre  of  religious 
and  moral  instruction.     An  investigation  made 


218         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

in  New  England  some  years  ago  with  reference 
to  family  worship  and  the  asking  of  the  blessing 
at  meals  revealed  the  fact  that  these  practices 
had  been  all  but  abandoned  even  among  church 
members  and  regular  attendants  at  church. 
This  was  true  in  the  city  of  Springfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, a  community  not  yet  disturbed  in 
its  traditions  by  the  mixing  of  many  kinds  of 
people.  Yet  its  homes  had  been  practically 
stripped  of  the  old-time  religious  practices. 
In  the  past  the  home  has  been  the  centre  of 
religious  instruction,  ever  since  the  time  when 
the  father  was  the  high  priest  of  the  family  and 
the  mother  tended  the  fire  that  was  never  al- 
lowed to  go  out.  Now  we  have  organized  young 
people's  societies,  young  men's  and  young  wom- 
en's Christian  associations,  and  many  othr*  in- 
stitutions of  religion.  These  are  accomplishing 
what  the  home  never  accomplished.  They  are 
influencing  the  actions  of  the  masses  in  a  way 
in  which  the  home  never  influenced  them. 

Yet  the  difficulty  is,  if  a  boy  does  not  learn 
moral  conduct  from  the  example  and  traditions 
in  his  home,  it  cannot  be  given  to  him  by  any 
precept  or  discourse.  The  power  of  social  tra- 
dition is  not  to  be  overcome  or  supplanted  by 
reasoning,  but  only  by  other  social  tradition. 
The  principal  of  a  large  eastern  school  said  to 


PLAY  AND   OUR   CIVILIZATION     219 

me:  "What  would  you  do  if  a  boy  came  to  you 
who  had  been  lying,  one  of  the  brightest  boys 
in  the  school?  When  I  talked  to  him  and  told 
him  how  the  whole  community  despised  a  liar, 
he  said:  'I  don't  believe  a  word  you  say.  My 
father  is  a  liar,  my  mother  is  a  liar,  and  my 
sister  is  a  liar.  My  father  is  a  thoroughly  suc- 
cessful business  man  of  high  standing  and  great 
wealth,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  whole 
community  despises  a  liar.  It  is  only  fools 
that  tell  the  truth  all  the  time.'  And  his  father 
was  a  brilliant  man,  and  his  mother  was  a 
woman  of  culture  and  she  was  a  liar;  all  those 
things  were  true  that  the  boy  was  telling.'1 

Habits  of  conduct  cannot  be  inculcated  by 
right  instruction.  Right  living  is  not  trans- 
mitted by  telling  children  to  be  honest  and  true 
and  brave.  It  is  developed  in  the  individual 
as  a  phase  of  other  activities,  and  through  the 
example  of  parents  and  other  adults  working, 
playing,  and  carrying  on  their  social  life  to- 
gether with  the  children.  The  transmission  of 
morals  is  no  longer  safe  in  the  family  because 
the  activities  out  of  which  morals  arise  have 
been  taken  away.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  family 
has  degenerated  or  deteriorated.  But  the  com- 
munity has  taken  over  many  of  the  functions 
that  the  family  formerly  had.     The  moral  prob- 


220         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

lems  facing  the  father  and  mother  are  not  the 
kind  into  which  the  children  can  enter  as  they 
did  in  the  past.  In  the  case  of  the  clerk,  the 
bank  president,  the  trolley-car  conductor,  the 
moral  questions  are  technical  and  of  a  kind  that 
do  not  lend  themselves  to  general  family  ex- 
ample. When  children  worked  with  their  par- 
ents they  had  opportunity  to  adjust  themselves 
gradually  to  the  world's  work  and  the  obliga- 
tions of  adult  life. 

To  remedy  the  situation  we  must  look  for- 
ward and  not  backward.  It  is  as  impossible 
as  it  would  be  undesirable  to  restore  the  old 
family  industries.  There  are  a  number  of  so- 
cieties in  America  that  are  trying  to  reintro- 
duce handicraft  in  the  family,  and  thus  to  solve 
this  and  certain  other  problems.  That  is  to 
restore  by  looking  backward.  To  call  the  father 
from  the  railroad  or  the  shop,  from  the  special- 
ized farm,  the  store  or  the  bank,  and  have  him 
again  live  the  long  wasteful  hours  of  unspecial- 
ized  labor,  to  have  the  mother  again  become  the 
slave  of  toil  in  order  to  create  the  rude  home 
necessities  of  a  century  ago,  all  this  is  foolish 
and  impossible.     We  have  passed  that  stage. 

Play  is  leaving  the  home.  The  family  life 
has  always  been  the  centre  of  children's  play. 
In  the  case  of  small  children  it  is  so  still.     But 


PLAY  AND  OUR  CIVILIZATION    221 

the  home  is  no  longer  the  centre  of  activities, 
and  children  want  to  be  where  something  is 
going  on;  so  as  they  grow  older,  they  go  out 
on  the  street  where  things  are  happening,  and 
have  their  play  and  social  life  there.  The  school 
has  become  for  many  the  centre  of  compan- 
ionship. The  city  home  is  too  small  for  any 
great  number  of  children  to  come  in  and  play. 
Children  less  and  less  have  their  parties  at 
home,  not  merely  because  the  home  is  not  large 
enough — the  home  is  no  longer  the  centre  of 
the  activities  that  make  up  social  life. 

We  are  not  to  face  this  conclusion  with  pain 
and  regret;  that  is  the  attitude  of  most  of 
us  when  we  think  of  the  home.  We  speak  in 
despairing  voices  and  in  a  dejected  manner, 
and  there  is  no  hope  in  us.  But  the  condition 
that  we  face  is  not  one  of  irreparable  loss.  It 
is  not  even  a  second  best  that  I  am  proposing. 
I  believe  in  the  home,  but  I  believe  more  in  the 
individual  and  the  community.  We  are  to 
conserve  only  the  features  of  the  home  that 
are  best  for  us,  and  we  must  let  others  go,  one 
after  the  other,  to  the  community,  as  soon  as 
it  is  clear  that  it  is  best  for  all  to  do  so. 

We  have  gained  greatly  by  performing  in  the 
community  many  of  the  things  formerly  done 
in  the  home.     This  is  notably  true  in  respect  to 


222        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

industries  and  education.  Even  play,  under  the 
best  modern  conditions,  may  be  better  provided 
by  the  community  than  it  ever  was  by  the 
family.  Modern  play  is  carried  on  under  the 
leadership  of  splendid  young  men  and  women 
who  are  familiar  with  the  play  traditions  that 
have  been  passed  on  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. By  selecting  from  among  us  those  who 
are  best  adapted  to  be  play  teachers  we  may 
secure  for  our  children  a  play  life  which  is  as 
much  richer  than  the  product  of  the  old  average 
home,  as  modern  education  excels  the  old  home 
education. 

Industry  has  been  organized  in  a  wonderful 
way,  and  the  material  progress  of  the  day  is 
related  to  this  fact.  Education  too  has  been 
highly  organized.  We  have  not  merely  the 
general  school-teacher,  but  specialists  of  all 
kinds,  who  are  giving  much  better  instruction 
than  the  mother  ever  gave.  But  recreation  re- 
mains the  one  great  activity  in  America  which 
has  not  fully  felt  that  genius  for  organization 
which  brings  to  play  the  advantages  of  human 
co-operation  so  characteristic  of  this  century. 
We  have  lost  the  relation  of  recreation  to  the 
home,  but  have  not  fully  established  its  relation 
to  the  community.  That  is  the  present  state 
of  affairs. 


PLAY  AND  OUR  CIVILIZATION    223 

We  need,  then,  first  of  all,  an  intelligent  fac- 
ing of  the  problem.  We  must  study  our  re- 
sources. We  must  deliberately  set  about  know- 
ing what  we  have  to  work  with — streets,  parks, 
school  buildings,  roofs.  We  must  know  what 
instincts  and  social  traditions  we  can  count  up- 
on. We  must  formulate  some  comprehensive 
plan.  A  measure  such  as  this  is  necessary  if 
we  are  to  make  sure  of  equal  attention  to  the 
needs  of  every  class  and  avoid  that  overlapping 
of  energy  which  always  accompanies  individual, 
unconnected  efforts.  Our  cities  are  being  archi- 
tecturally beautified  in  accordance  with  far- 
seeing,  harmonious  municipal  designs.  Our  in- 
dustries are  being  developed  through  thorough 
and  effective  study  of  resources  and  aims.  Our 
physical,  moral,  and  social  health  should  receive 
the  same  broad,  expert,  and  centralized  treat- 
ment. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

PLAY  AND  THE  MODERN  CITY 

THE  ideal  home  playground  is  the  back 
yard.  What  are  our  ideals  concerning  it 
with  reference  to  children?  The  utility 
of  the  yard  for  play  is  not  directly  related  to  the 
extent  of  its  area.  One  eight  feet  wide  and 
twelve  feet  long — that  is,  a  very  small  yard — 
if  it  is  properly  equipped  may  afford  an  exceed- 
ingly large  amount  of  play  for  children. 

A  back-yard  swing  is  always  interesting  to 
children.  It  need  not  be  fifteen  feet  high  in 
order  to  give  enjoyment,  and  any  one  can  put 
up  a  little  swing  of  three  feet.  I  am  not  in- 
formed as  to  the  kind  of  feelings  that  children 
have  in  swinging  at  different  heights;  but  I 
know  that  when  swinging  in  a  swing  twenty 
or  thirty  feet  high,  I  have  a  different  state  of 
mind  from  that  which  I  experience  when  swing- 
ing in  a  low,  short  swing  about  five  or  six  feet 
in  height.  My  own  belief  is  that,  so  far  as  ap- 
pealing to  the  interest  of  children  is  concerned, 
the  short  swing  is  far  more  effective  than  the 
long  one.     And  yet  the  fathers  and  mothers 

224 


PLAY  AND  THE  MODERN  CITY    225 

who  wish  to  do  exceptionally  well  for  their  chil- 
dren erect  large  swings  which  require  a  definite 
amount  of  time  to  complete  the  change  of  direc- 
tion, whereas  what  the  children  want  is  a  quick 
change  of  direction. 

Then  there  is  the  sand  pile.  It  need  not  be 
large.  An  ordinary  soap  box  filled  with  sand 
will  keep  small  children  happily  employed  hour 
after  hour.  There  is  no  problem  of  either  space 
or  expense  which  would  warrant  denying  chil- 
dren the  joys  of  a  little  swing  and  a  sand  pile. 

Ordinary  kitchen  ladders  were  arranged  by 
Mr.  Joseph  Lee  around  the  sides  of  a  back 
yard  in  a  way  so  as  to  permit  children  to  play 
tag  while  swinging  from  one  rung  to  another 
of  the  ladders.  In  this  way  they  went  round 
and  round  the  yard  in  their  play.  This  simple 
apparatus  converted  the  yard  into  a  three- 
dimension  playground.  The  ladders  were  ar- 
ranged in  a  manner  so  that  the  children  could 
mount  and  dismount  them  easily,  and  would 
run  small  danger  from  possible  falls. 

The  possibilities  of  block  and  structural 
plays  in  the  back  yard  have  already  been  de- 
scribed. The  only  trouble  with  our  own  little 
back  yard  in  Brooklyn,  where  we  kept  a  sup- 
ply of  these  building-blocks,  was  that  the  yard 
was   always   swamped   with   children.     During 


226         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

all  the  hours  of  daylight  children  were  found 
there.  Even  when  we  were  away  the  children 
of  the  neighborhood  would  climb  over  the  fence 
and  play  there  all  day. 

Thousands  of  poor  little  rich  children  parade 
on  Riverside  Drive  in  New  York  every  day, 
holding  their  nurses'  hands,  or  merely  walking 
or  running  about  within  range  of  the  nurse's 
voice.  These  children  do  not  want  an  airing; 
they  want  to  play,  but  there  are  no  back  yards 
for  the  poor  little  rich  children.  Is  it  not 
possible  to  multiply  these  back-yard  playgrounds 
in  our  city  life? 

I  question  whether  what  we  are  doing  for 
children  in  providing  play  opportunity  in  our 
cities  is,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  adequate. 
We  now  use  the  surface  of  the  ground  twenty 
times  over  for  purposes  of  business,  but  for  a 
playground  we  use  it  only  once.  The  mode  of 
making  manifold  use  of  the  ground  for  business 
has  been  evolved  as  the  result  of  much  labor 
and  intensive  study.  Corresponding  study  and 
effort  have  not  yet  been  given  to  creating  condi- 
tions which  will  provide  as  adequately  for  child 
life  in  our  cities.  To  give  children  in  the  con- 
gested parts  of  old  and  large  cities  adequate 
playgrounds  involves  so  great  a  degree  of  re- 
construction as  to  render  such  an  attempt  prac- 


PLAY  AND   THE   MODERN   CITY    227 

tically  impossible.  The  solution  of  this  prob- 
lem lies  in  the  future.  One  suggestion  that  has 
occupied  and  fascinated  me  is  a  many-storied 
playhouse,  of  twenty  stories,  perhaps.  But  a 
playhouse,  strictly  speaking,  placed  in  a  solid 
block  of  other  buildings,  would  not  be  adequate 
to  the  needs  of  child  life  because  of  the  lack  of 
sunshine  and  air.  The  plan  may  be  feasible, 
however,  if  the  house  is  constructed  with  open 
sides,  after  the  manner  of  our  recreation  piers. 
The  twenty-story  play -pier  is  a  structure  of  the 
future. 

The  church  may  help  in  meeting  the  play 
situation.  When  it  throws  open  the  gates  of 
its  beautiful  grounds  in  order  that  within  the 
enclosure  the  people  and  children  of  the  neigh- 
borhood may  have  opportunities  to  play,  this 
action  will  stand  as  a  symbol  of  the  relation- 
ship of  religion  to  life.  The  spiritual  life  can- 
not be  lived  apart  from  the  world;  it  includes 
and  envelops  the  simplest  daily  work,  play, 
and  relationships  of  life. 

If  there  are  times  of  the  day  when  our 
parks  are  not  adequately  used,  it  might  be 
brought  about  that  groups  of  children  would 
then  be  permitted  to  play  in  them.  By  this 
I  do  not  mean  that  the  parks  should  be  over- 
run with  children,  so  as  to  destroy  their  beauty, 


228        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

but  simply  that  we  need  to  take  an  accurate 
account  of  all  the  available  facilities  at  our 
command  in  the  city,  so  that  the  greatest  use 
possible  will  be  made  of  the  undeveloped  play 
possibilities  which  we  possess. 

Blocks  of  city  streets  may  be  set  aside  for 
the  play  of  children.  I  have  no  explanation 
to  offer  for  the  feelings  of  joy  that  children 
obtain  from  swift  running  and  sliding.  Three 
of  my  daughters  had  roller-skates,  and  the 
time  they  spent  going  up  an  asphalted  street 
and  down  again  like  the  wind,  with  the  elation 
of  spirits  that  resulted,  the  ecstasy  produced 
in  them,  seemed  to  me  matters  of  much  won- 
der. The  expression  of  this  exuberance  of 
spirit  it  is  possible  to  obtain  only  by  the  use  of 
a  relatively  extensive  area  such  as  a  city  block 
affords. 

The  community  must  provide  for  children  to 
the  same  extent,  and  more  completely,  more 
intelligently,  more  fully  than  the  family  form- 
erly provided  for  children — because  the  com- 
munity is  to  have  the  children.  It  has  them 
now — and  leaves  them  unprotected  on  the 
streets  after  school  hours.  That  situation  must 
be  remedied.  Our  streets  must  be  made  places 
that  are  as  wholesome  for  children  as  are  our 
homes.     The   very   word    "home"   is   tied   up 


PLAY  AND  THE   MODERN  CITY    229 

with  the  thought  of  children,  and  the  time  will 
surely  come  when  the  word  "city,"  the  larger 
home,  will  similarly  be  tied  up  with  the  idea  of 
the  care  of  children.  The  most  important  thing 
in  the  world  is  how  children  grow  up.  It  mat- 
ters not  how  splendid  is  our  architecture,  how 
complete  are  our  parks  and  statues,  how  fine 
is  our  poetry,  how  perfect  our  political  system 
— if  the  children  of  our  families  grow  up  sickly 
or  immoral  or  poor.  The  supreme  question  for 
every  generation  to  ask  itself  is :  Have  you  done 
that  which  has  passed  on  to  the  next  genera- 
tion the  treasures  of  life  fully,  completely,  and 
wholesomely?  If  you  have  not,  then  civiliza- 
tion means  nothing,  art  means  nothing,  educa- 
tion means  nothing,  religion  means  nothing. 
Religion  means  nothing  unless  it  means  progress 
toward  God,  and  that  means  wholesomeness 
in  all  aspects  of  life. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL  IN 
PLAY— PLAYGROUNDS 

IN  1897  the  Park  Board  of  Toledo  secured 
two  pieces  of  ground  and  installed  a  com- 
plete equipment  of  playground  apparatus. 
No  supervision  was  provided,  the  grounds  being 
in  charge  of  the  regular  park  attendants.  As 
a  result  the  apparatus  was  soon  destroyed  by 
rough  usage,  and  the  smaller  children  received 
such  treatment  at  the  hands  of  older  bullies 
that  they  did  not  dare  to  go  near  the  play- 
grounds. The  grounds  were  eventually  closed 
on  the  petition  of  the  people  living  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, because  their  influence  proved  wholly 
bad.  This  unfortunate  experience  caused  wide- 
spread opposition  to  later  efforts  made  in  Toledo 
for  the  establishment  of  playgrounds.  At  last 
a  well-regulated  playground  was  established, 
financed  by  the  Federation  of  Women's  Clubs, 
and  supervised  by  a  leader  from  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association.  The  good  results 
obtained  from  this  playground  effectually  de- 
stroyed the  opposition. 

230 


DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL      231 

The  experience  of  Toledo  is  not  unique.  In 
Duluth,  Minnesota,  in  the  spring  of  1908, 
Mayor  Haven  inaugurated  a  campaign  for 
playgrounds.  An  association  was  formed  to 
secure  funds  for  rental,  equipment,  and  super- 
vision. The  local  physical  director  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  was  ap- 
pointed supervisor.  At  about  this  time  the 
Park  Board  installed  a  few  swings  and  seesaws 
in  Portland  Square,  but  failed  to  put  the  ground 
under  supervision.  It  immediately  became  a 
meeting-place  for  undesirable  boys,  especially 
at  night.  So  much  protest  came  from  residents 
in  the  vicinity  that  the  apparatus  had  to  be 
removed.  Since  then  the  Park  Board  has  co- 
operated with  the  Playground  Association  in 
supplying  apparatus  only  to  grounds  under 
supervision. 

Pawtucket,  Rhode  Island,  had  a  similar  ex- 
perience. In  the  spring  of  1908  the  city  au- 
thorities decided  to  experiment  with  a  small 
playground  on  a  piece  of  city  property  centrally 
located.  An  appropriation  was  made  for  a 
small  amount  of  apparatus,  but  supervision 
was  not  provided.  The  place  became  an  ex- 
ceedingly noisy  one  and  a  loafing  ground  for 
the  rough  element  of  the  town.  The  larger  boys 
monopolized  the  apparatus.    The  neighbors  pro- 


232         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

tested.  The  Associated  Charities  offered  to 
provide  a  supervisor.  This  offer  was  accepted 
and  the  work  was  carried  on  under  that  organi- 
zation for  the  remainder  of  the  season  to  the 
entire  satisfaction  of  the  neighborhood. 

These  examples  illustrate  one  extreme  in  the 
attitude  toward  playground  control.  The  other 
extreme  was  shown  in  Paris,  at  the  time  when 
the  value  of  play  first  began  to  be  recognized. 
A  good  playground  was  established  in  connec- 
tion with  a  certain  school,  and  the  teachers 
worked  out  a  play  curriculum,  which  should 
contain  all  the  desired  elements.  At  a  given 
hour  the  children  were  marched  to  the  play- 
ground in  military  fashion,  and  told:  "These 
are  your  playthings,  and  such  are  the  games 
you  must  play.'3  If  they  did  not  obey,  they 
were  punished. 

This  is  the  type  of  directed  play  to  which 
objection  is  rightly  made.  But  the  objection 
to  directed  play  is  frequently  carried  further. 
When  the  Playground  Association  of  America 
was  organized  in  Washington,  President  Roose- 
velt said:  "It  is  a  splendid  thing  to  provide  in 
congested  districts  of  American  cities  spaces 
where  children  may  play;  but  let  them  play 
freely.  Do  not  interfere  with  their  play.  Leave 
them  alone."     Later  he  changed  his  opinion, 


DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL      233 

but  in  those  words  he  voiced  a  general  public 
feeling  regarding  the  whole  matter  of  play  and 
playgrounds,  the  feeling  that  children  should 
be  let  alone,  that  they  will  play  wholesomely 
if  adults  do  not  interfere.  This  view  can  no 
longer  be  held  in  face  of  the  experience  of 
Toledo  and  other  cities.  Real  freedom  is  im- 
possible without  protection.  An  unsupervised 
playground  is  nominally  free;  in  reality  it  is 
controlled  by  the  strongest  and  most  vicious 
element  in  the  crowd.  It  is  a  dangerous  place 
for  girls  and  small  children;  it  can  be  con- 
verted from  a  direct  source  of  evil  to  a  source 
of  benefit  by  having  some  one  put  in  authority, 
who  will  see  that  the  ground  is  used  for  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  intended — that  the 
older  boys  have  their  place  and  the  smaller 
children  theirs,  and  that  each  group  is  free 
within  its  own  limits.  No  large  company  of 
people  can  be  free  without  control  of  this  kind. 
In  addition  to  this  negative  protection,  free 
play  needs  to  go  one  step  further  in  our  modern 
city,  or  in  any  place  where  play  traditions  are 
relatively  new.  If  untaught  boys  are  put  on 
parallel  bars,  they  may  not  know  what  to  do. 
If  they  are  taken  to  a  swimming-tank  and  have 
never  learned  to  swim,  they  are  unable  to  enjoy 
themselves.     But  if  a  man  goes  with  them  who 


234         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

is  a  good  swimmer  and  diver,  who  is  proficient 
in  the  various  accomplishments  that  the  boys 
want  to  learn,  then  the  example  which  he  sets 
not  only  does  not  interfere  with  the  freedom  of 
their  play  but  makes  real  play  for  the  first 
time  possible.  He  is  a  play  promoter.  His 
task  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  modern  librarian, 
who  directs  by  showing  possibilities. 

The  conditions  of  modern  life  have  empha- 
sized the  necessity  of  some  play  example.  A 
young  woman  came  out  of  a  New  York  settle- 
ment one  afternoon,  and  found  nearly  200  chil- 
dren crowding  around  the  door.  The  play- 
ground across  the  street  had  closed.  She  asked 
what  they  were  waiting  for.  "The  Children's 
Service,'3  was  the  reply.  "What  is  that?'  she 
asked.  "Oh,  that's  where  you  sit  around  and 
sing.  It  comes  at  half -past  six."  It  was  only 
a  little  after  five  at  the  time,  and  the  children 
were  waiting  there,  standing  on  the  street  for 
more  than  an  hour,  until  they  should  have  an 
opportunity  to  "sit  around  and  sing.':  They 
did  not  have  to  come  early  to  get  a  seat.  But 
they  had  no  idea  of  any  way  to  amuse  them- 
selves. They  did  not  know  anything  to  play 
in  the  meantime. 

In  a  community  that  is  relatively  stable, 
where  one  generation  of  children  succeeds  an- 


DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL      235 

other  almost  imperceptibly,  each  graduating 
generation  can  be  counted  upon  to  leave  play 
traditions  behind  it:  such  and  such  shall  be  the 
games  of  this  community,  and  played  accord- 
ing to  this  standard;  and  the  legacy  is  accepted 
unquestionably.  Games  handed  down  in  this 
way  have  proved  well  suited  to  their  environ- 
ment. Thus  a  game  like  "Monkey  chase," 
which  requires  trees  and  a  grassy  running  space, 
was  an  ideal  game  for  an  old  Connecticut 
orchard,  where  it  was  developed  with  a  most 
elaborate  code  of  regulations;  but  it  could  not 
bear  transplanting  to  the  city.  The  play  tra- 
dition was  broken,  and  'Monkey  chase'  died. 
The  majority  of  country  games  has  shared 
the  same  fate.  There  is  no  space  to  play  these 
games  in  a  large  city. 

Most  of  the  traditional  games  of  the  world 
have  grown  up  under  conditions  of  plenty  of 
space  and  plenty  of  time.  Relatively  few  games 
can  be  found  that  are  useful  where  500  children 
are  turned  out  for  a  ten-minute  recess  into  a 
yard  where  50  can  play  comfortably.  Then 
some  one  must  come  in  to  modify  the  old  games, 
so  that  50  can  play  in  a  given  space  where  only 
10  could  play  before;  so  that  games  which  once 
demanded  an  hour  can  be  played  in  ten  minutes. 
The    old    conditions    under    which    the    games 


236         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

arose  have  gone.  The  games  will  go  also,  un- 
less they  are  adapted  to  the  new  conditions. 
For  this  also  we  need  the  play  promoter,  the 
play  teacher. 

One  of  the  most  keenly  sought  enjoyments 
of  those  who  visit  the  older  countries  is  to  wit- 
ness the  celebration  of  national  holidays.  The 
national  and  folk-dances  which  have  grown  up 
around  these  occasions  are  the  most  common 
form  of  art  available  to  all  the  people.  Here  in 
America  we  have  the  same  human  feelings  de- 
manding expression,  we  have  occasions  demand- 
ing adequate  celebration,  but  we  have  no  form 
of  social  habits.  We  do  not  yet  know  how  to 
celebrate  the  Fourth  of  July  adequately.  We 
have  no  appropriate  celebration  for  Lincoln's 
birthday,  or  for  Thanksgiving  Day.  We  need 
traditions.  Our  poverty  in  this  direction  is 
shown  when  our  people  come  together  after 
some  great  occasion,  such  as  a  state  or  national 
election.  We  have  fireworks  in  some  cities; 
but  most  people  do  nothing  but  surge  up  and 
down  the  streets  in  hopeless  confusion.  We 
have  no  social  forms  in  which  to  express  our 
common  emotion. 

It  would  seem  that  in  a  country  like  ours, 
made  up  of  people  from  many  parts  of  the 
world,  we  could  be  peculiarly  rich  in  all  our 


DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL      237 

social  inheritances.  It  would  seem  as  if  we 
would  have  gathered  together  all  that  rich 
folk-lore  which  comes  down  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  from  mother  to  child,  from  generation 
to  generation,  sometimes  carried  by  the  profes- 
sional story-teller,  sometimes  by  the  children 
themselves,  embodying  within  itself  the  forms 
of  moral  discipline  and  social  relation,  and  stores 
of  folk  music  in  which  the  dawning  aesthetic 
sense  is  shown.  We  have  many  people  from 
Norway  and  Sweden,  Russia,  Italy,  Spain,  and 
Greece.  But  we  have  not  the  folk  music,  the 
folk-lore,  the  folk  poetry,  the  great  games  which 
have  been  elaborated  during  the  experience  of 
the  centuries,  and  which  perfectly  fitted  the 
children  of  the  communities  from  which  our 
immigrants  came.  The  children  of  New  York, 
one  of  the  most  cosmopolitan  cities  in  the  world, 
are  poverty-stricken  in  the  knowledge  of  play. 

These  facts  seem  to  point  inevitably  to  one 
conclusion.  The  great  traditions  of  social  life 
are  not  carried  by  the  individual,  or  even  by 
the  family;  they  are  carried  by  the  community 
as  a  whole.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  great  com- 
munities, composed  of  groups  of  people  from 
all  parts  of  the  world,  would  inherit  the  tradi- 
tions of  all;  but  such  is  not  the  case.  They 
inherit   only   the   simplest   traditions,    the   ele- 


238         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

ments  common  to  all.  The  children  of  these 
complex  communities  play  only  a  few  games, 
the  games  they  all  have  in  common.  They  will 
play  tag  because  tag  is  played  everywhere, 
but  not  the  complex  forms  of  tag.  They  will 
dance  none  of  the  great  dances  which  have 
been  the  first  stimulus  toward  the  sense  of  beauty 
and  rhythm  the  world  over.  They  may  in- 
vent some  games  which  suit  the  conditions  in 
which  they  find  themselves,  but  they  will  in- 
vent poor  games  at  first. 

Craps,  a  gambling  game  played  with  dice, 
is  a  typical  city  game,  invented  by  the  children 
of  the  city.  It  is  the  product  of  city  environ- 
ment, and  it  is  in  many  respects  admirably 
adapted  to  that  environment.  It  is  an  inter- 
esting game;  of  that  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
All  the  severe  steps  taken  to  eliminate  it  have 
been  in  vain.  Craps  is  suited  to  city  condi- 
tions. It  can  be  played  in  a  limited  space.  It 
is  a  quiet  game;  boys  playing  craps  break  no 
windows  and  do  not  annoy  the  neighborhood. 
It  is  a  game  suited  to  limited  time;  it  can  be 
played  in  five  minutes  or  five  hours.  It  adapts 
itself  to  any  number  of  players,  five,  ten,  or  an 
indefinite  number.  Craps  is  the  almost  in- 
evitable outgrowth  of  modern  city  conditions; 
it  bids  fair  to  become  the  national  game  of  the 


DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL      239 

tenements.  There  are,  however,  two  respects 
in  which  craps  is  not  a  good  game.  It  is  useless 
physiologically  and  it  is  bad  morally.  It 
keeps  boys  crouched  in  an  unwholesome  posi- 
tion, and  it  teaches  them  to  gamble.  This  is 
the  type  of  game  that  our  city  environment 
creates  and  fosters,  unless  "by  taking  thought" 
we  provide  some  better  game  equally  well 
adapted  to  the  conditions  of  space  and  time 
and  opportunity. 

The  conscious  teaching  and  promotion  of 
play  need  not  take  the  form  of  interference. 
A  friend  spent  his  summers  in  a  small  country 
community  from  which  most  of  the  active  and 
energetic  young  men  had  gone  to  the  cities. 
Those  left  remained  for  some  special  reason,  or 
because  they  lacked  initiative.  In  that  par- 
ticular community  no  games  were  being  played 
by  the  older  boys.  There  was  no  baseball. 
The  young  man  referred  to  was  a  catcher  on  the 
Yale  University  baseball  team.  He  became 
acquainted  with  some  of  the  country  boys, 
who  on  one  Fourth  of  July  asked  him  if  he 
knew  how  to  play  ball.  He  answered  :Yes." 
So  he  came  out  with  them,  and  it  was  soon  evi- 
dent that  he  was  a  good  player.  They  enjoyed 
playing  with  him,  he  organized  them,  and  they 
elected   him   captain.     When   they   discovered 


240        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

that  he  had  played  in  college,  he  became  the 
great  man  of  the  community.  After  a  while 
he  proposed  that  they  should  keep  up  their 
organization  for  doing  other  things  besides 
playing  ball.  That  young  man  went  to  them 
for  several  years  and  reshaped  the  lives  of  those 
country  boys.  He  became  to  them  an  ideal, 
and  was,  no  doubt,  idealized.  He  led  them  in 
directions  that  make  for  power,  persistence, 
clean,  strong  play.  He  gave  them  something 
to  do — and  a  model. 

This  is  the  ideal  type  of  play  direction — the 
control  which  comes  through  example  and  play- 
ing together.  Through  play  leaders  such  as 
these  a  transfer  is  made  from  generation  to 
generation,  not  merely  of  games,  but  of  char- 
acter. Teachers  who  play  with  their  children 
accomplish  this  type  of  control  to  some  extent, 
and  the  measure  of  their  success  lies  in  the 
measure  in  which  they  themselves  play  rather 
than  imitate  playing.  It  may  be  tested  by  its 
results.  If  the  children  repeat  of  their  own 
free  will  the  games  they  have  learned  on  the 
playground,  if  they  have  accepted  those  plays 
not  under  compulsion,  but  because  the  games 
appealed  to  them,  then  the  play  leader  has  ful- 
filled his  function.  The  right  kind  of  playground 
leadership  attracts  children;    a  properly  super- 


DIRECTION  AND   CONTROL      241 

vised  playground  is  always  more  crowded  than 
an  unsupervised  play  space.  To  adapt  old  play 
traditions  and  to  create  new  ones  suited  to  the 
requirements  of  city  life  is  to  set  in  motion  a 
force  the  influence  of  which  can  hardly  be 
measured. 

Doctor  Haddon  relates  an  experience  in 
Borneo  during  a  rain-storm  when  he  took  refuge 
in  the  hut  of  a  native.  He  found  a  group  of 
persons  waiting,  like  himself,  for  the  storm  to 
cease.  Thinking  to  amuse  the  native  children, 
he  took  a  piece  of  string  from  his  pocket,  tied 
it  in  the  form  of  a  loop,  put  it  on  his  hands  and 
made  a  "Cat's  cradle."  He  then  showed  them 
how  to  "take  it  off."  He  was  surprised  that 
it  was  taken  off  promptly.  Then  he  took  it 
off,  and  this  pastime  was  continued  until  he 
came  to  the  end  of  his  series,  after  which  the 
native  children  went  on  for  four  or  five  figures 
more.  It  is  a  long  time,  Doctor  Haddon  says, 
since  their  forefathers  and  ours  dwelt  together 
and  as  children  played  "Cat's  cradle"  to- 
gether; but  upon  no  other  hypothesis  is  it 
possible  to  account  for  the  development  and 
preservation  of  this  form  of  play,  which  is  too 
complicated  to  have  been  developed  twice  in 
just  that  manner.  The  children  played  it  and 
taught  it  to  the  younger  children;   they  learned 


242        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

it  and  taught  it  to  the  younger  children,  they 
in  turn  to  the  younger  children,  and  so  on  for 
hundreds  and  thousands  andj  maybe  tens  of 
thousands  of  years,  in  an  unbroken  chain  from 
the  time  when  their  fathers  and  ours  lived 
together. 

Such  is  the  force  that  carries  the  forms  of 
play,  and  we  in  America  have  seriously  inter- 
fered with  it.  That  is  why  the  great  folk-dances 
and  folk  festivals  have  gone,  and  why  we  must 
teach  our  children  to  play.  That  is  why  we 
must  make  a  conscious  effort  to  restore  their 
birthright.  Therefore  we  need  tradition  car- 
riers, play  leaders.  Without  them  it  would  be 
better  to  have  no  playgrounds  at  all;  that  has 
been  the  experience  in  congested  districts. 
With  the  right  kind  of  play  promoter,  play  is 
free  from  the  interference  of  bullies;  it  is  en- 
riched and  made  more  interesting;  it  then  be- 
comes capable  of  transmitting  the  social  and 
moral  traditions  of  the  race. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY 

WHEN  the  baby  was  learning  to  creep, 
she  one  day  discovered  the  bottom 
step  of  the  stairs  leading  to  the  upper 
story.  The  step  interested  her.  Placing  her 
hands  upon  it,  she  raised  one  foot.  When  this 
was  safely  put  on  the  higher  level,  she  en- 
deavored to  raise  the  other  foot.  While  she 
was  doing  this,  she  was  followed  by  her  anxious 
mother  and  doting  father.  The  latter  had 
brought  a  sofa  pillow  and  had  it  ready,  so  that 
when  the  loss  of  balance  came  and  the  toddler 
rolled  backward  down  the  step,  she  was  shocked 
and  frightened,  but  in  no  way  injured.  She 
had  learned  the  first  lesson  about  climbing  and 
falling. 

This  policy  of  allowing  children  to  learn  by 
experience,  but  safeguarding  the  experience  so 
that  it  shall  not  be  disastrous,  was  pursued 
with  the  other  children  of  that  family.  They 
spent  their  summers  on  the  edge  of  a  bluff 
about  forty  feet  high,  with  the  bank  sloping 

243 


244         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

down  at  an  angle  of  forty  degrees.  During  the 
summer  vacations,  although  the  children  had 
complete  freedom — swinging  over  the  bluff  on 
tree  branches,  going  where  they  pleased  down 
the  slope — not  one  of  them,  little  or  big,  ever 
fell,  because  they  had  learned  the  lesson  of  fall- 
ing when  they  were  small,  and  in  ways  that  did 
not  bring  disaster. 

In  a  well-managed  playground  the  children 
are  treated  in  a  similar  way  with  reference  to 
their  experiences  with  one  another.  In  addi- 
tion to  receiving  the  physical  benefits  that 
come  from  wholesome  outdoor  exercise,  and  the 
intellectual  benefits  that  come  from  useful  con- 
structive work,  the  little  children  playing  on 
the  sand  pile  learn  fundamental  lessons  in  mu- 
tual rights.  The  older  children  learn  lessons  in 
mutual  relationships  by  sharing  the  use  of 
swings,  by  having  to  play  by  the  rules  of  the 
game.  Later  on,  as  they  form  into  teams, 
they  learn  that  self-sacrifice  which  is  involved 
in  the  team  game.  They  learn  that  the  social 
unit  is  larger  than  the  individual  unit,  that  in- 
dividual victory  is  not  as  sweet  as  the  victory 
of  the  team,  and  that  the  most  perfect  self- 
realization  is  won  by  the  most  perfect  sinking 
of  one's  self  in  the  welfare  of  the  larger  unit — 
the   team.     Thus   the   child   learns   to   control 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         245 

himself  in  these  increasingly  complex  relation- 
ships, and  he  learns  to  control  himself  because 
he  is  not  externally  controlled. 

It  is  true  that  there  is  in  the  playground  a 
measurable  degree  of  control — that  kind  of 
control  which  wards  off  disaster — as  in  the  case 
of  the  baby  learning  to  climb.  There  is  that 
control  which  prevents  the  older  from  en- 
croaching on  the  rights  of  the  younger,  which 
restrains  the  bully  from  encroaching  on  the 
rights  of  the  weaker.  But  the  control  in  a  well- 
managed  playground  is  largely  of  the  mutual 
consent  kind.  It  is  that  control  which  obtains 
throughout  well  regulated  society — the  control 
of  public  opinion,  rather  than  the  control  of 
either  force  or  fear. 

Play  in  itself  is  neither  good  nor  bad.  To  sink 
one's  very  soul  in  loyalty  to  the  gang  is  in  itself 
neither  good  nor  bad.  The  gang  may  be  a 
peril  to  the  city,  as  indeed  is  the  case  in  many 
cities.  The  gang  of  boys  that  grows  up  to  be 
the  political  unit,  bent  merely  upon  serving 
itself,  possessing  a  power  which  mutual  loyalty 
alone  can  give,  is  thereby  enabled  to  exploit 
others  for  its  own  advantage  in  a  way  that  is 
most  vicious.  My  point  is  that  these  mutual 
relationships  have  an  ethical  effect.  This  effect 
may  be  toward  evil  and  it  may  be  toward  good; 


246        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

but  the  ethical  nature  in  itself  is  primarily  re- 
lated to  self-control  and  to  freedom. 

In  some  institutions  of  learning  the  traditions 
of  athletics  are  such  as  to  tolerate,  and  even  to 
approve  of  conduct  and  of  ways  of  playing 
which  in  other  institutions  are  utterly  con- 
demned. The  boy  going  through  one  institu- 
tion will  come  out  having  ideals  with  reference 
to  athletics  and  other  things  which  have  been 
shaped  toward  good — or  toward  evil  in  the 
other  case.  Hence  the  significance  of  having 
playgrounds  and  play  organizations,  including 
school  athletic  organizations,  in  which  the  ideals 
presented  shall  make  for  good  social  relation- 
ships that  frown  on  the  bully,  that  exclude  the 
person  who  is  selfish,  that  approve  of  the  per- 
son who  is  courteous  as  well  as  strong  and 
quick — organizations  where  honesty  is  recog- 
nized and  fair  play  is  generally  accorded.  Anti- 
ethical  play  is  worse  than  no  play  at  all.  It  is 
not  merely  play  that  our  cities  and  our  children 
need;  they  need  the  kind  of  play  that  makes 
for  wholesome  moral  and  ethical  fife,  the  play 
that  makes  for  those  relationships  between  in- 
dividuals that  will  be  true  to  the  adult  ideals 
which  belong,  and  should  belong,  to  the  com- 
munity. 

There  is  real  freedom  on  the  playground,  be- 
cause the  child  must  either  play  by  the  rules 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         247 

or  be  shut  out  by  his  playmates  or  those  in 
charge.  In  this  respect  the  playground  is 
unique.  The  child  is  not  free  to  leave  school 
as  he  pleases.  He  cannot  leave  his  home  as 
he  pleases.  Of  course,  within  the  limitations 
of  the  school  and  the  home  there  are  varying 
degrees  of  freedom,  but  essentially  and  at  bot- 
tom there  is  and  must  be  authority.  I  am  not 
decrying  authority;  it  is  necessary.  But  I  am 
saying  that  in  addition  to  authority  there  must 
be  an  opportunity  in  the  life  of  the  child  for 
the  development  of  those  qualities  which  de- 
pend upon,  and  which  are  developed  only  under 
conditions  of  freedom.  This  kind  of  control 
which  people  exert  upon  one  another  is,  to  be 
sure,  external  control — and  external  control, 
we  have  said,  does  not  develop  morality;  but 
this  external  control  of  the  playground  differs 
from  the  control  of  the  home  or  the  school  in 
this  respect:  the  child  is  free  to  leave  it  if  he 
chooses.  If  a  boy  does  not  want  to  play  ball 
in  the  way  that  satisfies  his  comrades,  he  can 
get  out;  he  is  free.  Hence,  if  he  stays,  con- 
trolling his  temper  and  playing  according  to 
the  fair  ideal  of  his  playmates,  there  is  a  kind 
of  self-control  that  is  not  exercised  either  in 
the  school  or  in  the  home,  where  authority 
is  fundamental. 

The  school  and  the  home  must  teach  obedi- 


248        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

ence  as  a  primary  virtue.  Obedience  is  in- 
creasingly necessary  wherever  large  masses  of 
persons  come  together.  This  is  perhaps  no- 
where better  shown  than  at  a  fire  in  a  school 
building.  There  have  been  several  fires  in 
New  York  city  schools,  but  in  not  one  has  there 
been  loss  of  life.  In  not  one  has  a  class  been 
stampeded;  not  a  single  teacher  has  fainted 
or  screamed  or  left  her  post.  In  these  fires 
(which  might  otherwise  have  resulted  in  great 
loss  of  life)  the  children  have  stood  quietly  in 
their  places — although  in  some  instances  the 
rooms  were  filled  with  smoke — until  the  order 
came  for  them  to  go,  when  they  moved  rapidly, 
quietly,  in  step,  down  the  precise  way  which 
they  were  told  to  go.  Nothing  but  plain, 
straight  obedience  can  meet  situations  such  as 
these — obedience  to  authority,  immediate, 
prompt,  and  all-inclusive. 

The  child  must  progress  through  the  grades 
step  by  step.  It  is  not  his  to  say  when  he  will 
study  geography  and  when  history  or  mathe- 
matics. These  decisions  cannot  be  left  to  him. 
It  is  not  his  to  determine  what  shall  be  the  school 
hours,  the  school  vacations.  These  questions 
must  be  settled  by  persons  of  far  larger  view- 
point than  he  possesses.  In  a  measure  the  school 
may  be  organized  so  that  a  certain  degree  of 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         249 

co-operation  is  secured  from  the  pupils,  as  in 
the  school  city;  but  the  fundamental  questions 
of  school  administration  are  not  for  the  pupil 
to  decide,  and  we  need  not  blind  ourselves  to 
the  fact  that  the  school  must  be  fundamentally 
and  essentially  a  monarchy;  and  that  it  does, 
should,  and  must  develop  primarily  the  qualities 
of  obedience. 

In  view  of  the  changing  conditions  that  now 
obtain,  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion of  obedience  in  relation  to  the  home. 
But  even  under  the  present  conditions  it  is 
perhaps  safe  to  say  that  except  in  so  far  as  there 
is  obedience  to  some  authority  in  the  home,  there 
is  no  true  home. 

Thus  the  two  great  institutions  that  have  to 
deal  with  children — the  school  and  the  home — 
rest  primarily  upon  the  development  of  the 
qualities  of  obedience.  The  playground  alone 
affords  to  children  the  one  great  opportunity 
for  cultivating  those  qualities  that  grow  out 
of  meeting  others  of  like  kind  under  conditions 
of  freedom;  it  develops  progressively,  from 
babyhood  on,  that  sense  of  human  relation- 
ships which  is  basal  to  wholesome  living.  Thus 
the  playground  is  our  great  ethical  laboratory. 

Where  there  is  no  freedom,  there  can  be  no 
self-control.     The  man  whose  limbs  are  shackled 


250         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

cannot  control  them.  The  man  whose  mind 
is  shackled,  cannot  control  his  mind.  The 
person  who  is  compelled  by  force  or  fear,  so 
that  he  is  not  free,  has  no  self-control.  The 
control  of  one's  self  is  absolutely  based  upon 
having  the  freedom  to  control  one's  self — a 
freedom  to  do  wrong,  as  well  as  right.  If  a 
boy  is  made  to  do  a  thing  by  force,  he  has  to 
do  it;  he  may  or  may  not  want  to.  It  is  a 
non-moral  proceeding.  It  may  be  necessary, 
but  it  is  not  on  a  moral  level.  For  instance,  a 
boy  may  have  to  take  quinine.  He  may  object 
to  it  so  vigorously  that  his  nose  must  be  held  in 
order  to  open  his  mouth.  This  may  be  good  for 
him,  but  it  has  no  effect  on  his  morals.  He  is 
not  free,  and  freedom  is  necessary  for  morality. 
Self-control  of  the  higher  type  is  primarily  de- 
veloped under  the  conditions  of  the  playground, 
rather  than  under  the  conditions  of  the  school 
and  the  home. 

I  spoke  of  that  experience  which  the  baby 
had  in  learning  her  early  steps — the  process  of 
avoiding  tumbles.  She  learned  by  doing.  This 
is  one  of  the  fundamental  words  of  the  new  edu- 
cation, and  it  has  now  come  to  be  applied  prac- 
tically to  all  the  subjects  of  the  school  cur- 
riculum. The  child  learns  to  read  by  reading. 
He    learns    to    write    by    writing.     He    learns 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         251 

arithmetic  by  adding,  subtracting,  multiplying, 
and  dividing.  He  learns  his  physics  by  making 
experiments.  He  learns  his  chemistry  in  the 
laboratory.  He  learns  his  botany  out  of  doors, 
rather  than  from  books  alone.  He  learns  his 
geography  primarily  by  studying  the  school 
and  the  schoolroom,  its  environments,  and  then 
the  city.  He  thus  learns  to  read  maps,  and  he 
understands  things  as  you  and  I  did  not  under- 
stand them  at  his  age  at  all. 

Ethics  alone  seem  to  be  regarded  as  the  ex- 
ception. We  apparently  still  think  that  we 
can  develop  the  power  of  self-control  without 
giving  people  freedom,  that  we  can  develop 
ethical  power  by  merely  talking  about  it,  ser- 
monizing about  it.  We  still  think  that  we  can 
cultivate  obedience  to  such  an  extent  that  it 
shall  balance  over  and  become  self-control; 
and  yet  we  know  that  living  twenty  years  in 
prison,  where  the  most  perfectly  enforced  rou- 
tine is  secured,  does  not  develop  in  the  in- 
dividual that  high  degree  of  self-control  which 
such  perfect  obedience  would  suggest.  The 
absolute  obedience  which  the  seamen  on  our 
men-of-war  maintain  during  their  ocean  trips, 
where  they  rise  on  the  minute,  eat,  work,  play, 
attend  divine  service  regularly,  all  according 
to  well-regulated  schedules,  does  not  so  estab- 


252         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

lish  within  them  that  perfect  self-control  which 
will  keep  them  from  license  on  receiving  shore 
leave  in  Yokohama,  as  I  have  seen.  The  sea- 
man has  not  had  liberty;  so  his  free  time  does 
not  mean  freedom,  but  license — something  which 
kills  itself. 

Time  and  again  I  have  seen  young  men  who 
had  been  cared  for  so  assiduously  by  their 
parents  as  never  even  to  choose  their  gloves, 
shirts,  or  neckties  for  themselves,  whose  funds 
had  been  so  carefully  administered  for  them 
that  they  themselves  had  no  responsibility  or 
freedom.  They  had,  perhaps,  been  given  small 
allowances  to  do  with  as  they  pleased,  but  all 
their  essential  needs  were  met.  They  never 
learned  the  value  of  money  by  having  to  earn 
it.  They  never  learned  the  value  of  things  by 
having  to  go  without  them.  They  never  learned 
the  necessity  of  control  by  having  freedom, 
and  thus  learning  by  experience.  And  when 
these  young  men  went  to  college  and  were  given 
an  allowance  which  should  cover  all  their  needs, 
they  suddenly  had  an  extent  of  freedom  thrust 
upon  them  for  wThich  they  were  totally  unpre- 
pared. It  was  just  as  if  the  baby  had  been  com- 
pelled to  wait  with  reference  to  controlling  her 
bodily  movements,  so  that  she  never  fell  or 
never  even  had  the  feeling  of  f ailing,  until  she  was 


PLAY  AND   DEMOCRACY         253 

pretty  well  grown — until  her  desires  were  such 
as  to  lead  her  to  climb  to  high  things.  She  cer- 
tainly would  learn  at  some  time  the  meaning  of 
the  fall,  but  at  this  later  time  the  meaning 
might  be  disastrous;  it  might  result  fatally. 
So  with  these  college  boys.  The  expensiveness 
of  learning  freedom  after  one  is  well  grown  con- 
sists in  the  fact  that  the  experiments  involved 
are  so  large.  The  risks  are  so  much  greater, 
and  disaster,  rather  than  success,  often  results 
from  such  experiments  in  freedom  at  a  later  time. 

The  development  of  the  ethical,  social  self 
must  begin  as  soon  as  the  child  is  old  enough 
to  have  relations  with  other  children  of  his  own 
age,  and  it  must  continue  as  long  as  human 
life  continues. 

The  relation  of  this  to  democracy  is  already 
evident.  During  our  age  we  are  witnessing 
an  unparalleled  development  of  commerce.  Sci- 
ence in  all  its  branches  is  progressing  by  leaps 
and  bounds.  The  number  of  journals  and  books 
issued  in  the  name  of  science  has  not  only  en- 
tirely passed  beyond  the  capacity  of  Bacon's 
ideal,  but  the  specialist  in  a  single  field — in  a 
subsection  of  the  field  of  physiology— cannot 
hope  to  keep  up  with  the  researches  published 
in  this  line.  So  to  know  what  is  going  on  even 
in  this  one  subject,  one  must  take  a  section  of  a 


254        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

section  of  one  science.  The  humanitarian  de- 
velopments of  our  times  are  unique  and  ex- 
traordinary. Our  charity  organization  soci- 
eties, the  development  of  our  hospitals,  the 
wonderful  "first-aid"  work  that  is  going  on  in 
the  armies  of  the  world,  the  relief  work  for  chil- 
dren, the  societies  for  improving  the  condition 
of  the  poor,  the  societies  for  sending  destitute 
children  to  the  country  in  summer — these  are 
working  in  great  numbers  and  with  unprece- 
dented efficiency.  This  is  an  era  of  popular 
education.  Never  before  has  so  large  a  per- 
centage of  the  population  been  in  schools. 
Lectures  for  adults  on  improving  subjects,  corre- 
spondence schools,  colleges,  public  schools,  pri- 
vate schools — all  mark  a  wave  of  interest  in 
education  that  is  new  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 

But  we  see  also  an  unparalleled  exploitation 
of  the  many  by  the  few,  with  oftentimes  a  dis- 
regard for  law.  And  further,  we  see  a  tendency 
for  popular,  unthinking,  uncontrolled  action, 
which  is  shown  in  its  worst  form  by  the  lynch 
mobs.  Both  these  tendencies  are  fatal  to  the 
permanent  life  of  a  democracy.  These  are  two 
of  the  greatest  dangers  of  our  times — the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  many  by  the  few  and  uncon- 
trolled public  action. 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         255 

Neither  of  these  dangers  rests  upon  the 
development  of  any  new  feelings  in  mankind, 
or  upon  the  development  of  new  intellectual  or 
other  powers.  It  simply  appears  that  new  op- 
portunities have  been  given  to  old  powers  and 
that  these  enlarged  opportunities  consist  in  the 
nature  of  the  material  development  which  is 
now  going  on  in  the  world.  For  example,  the 
application  of  steam  to  transportation  on  land, 
railroads;  to  transportation  on  water,  steam 
vessels;  to  printing;  to  all  kinds  of  manufac- 
tures, construction,  building,  machine  making, 
and  the  like,  has  made  the  modern  city  not  only 
possible,  but  necessary.  The  modern  city  with 
its  development  of  machinery  places  the  empha- 
sis upon  elaboration  rather  than  upon  the  pro- 
duction of  raw  materials.  We  are  no  longer, 
and  can  never  be  again,  a  farming,  fishing,  min- 
ing people.  We  must  work  where  large  numbers 
of  persons  can  get  together  quickly,  where  com- 
modities can  be  exchanged  rapidly,  where  goods 
can  be  carried  from  one  part  to  the  other  easily, 
where  intercommunication  is  prompt,  economi- 
cal, and  efficient. 

Steam  and  electricity  have  tied  the  world 
together.  They  have  made  specialization  in- 
evitable, because  they  have  created  so  many 
more  things  that  need  to  be  done.     And  thus 


256         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

has  been  vastly  increased  the  mutual  interde- 
pendence, not  only  of  all  people,  but  of  all  the 
peoples.  It  is  not  only  true  that  the  honesty 
of  the  banker  in  a  community  affects  the  wel- 
fare of  the  other  people  in  that  community; 
it  is  also  true  that  the  welfare  of  the  farmer  who 
supplies  the  milk,  the  butcher  who  furnishes  the 
meat,  the  school-teacher  who  teaches  the  chil- 
dren, the  city  official — all  these  involve  the  wel- 
fare, or  the  reverse,  of  all  the  rest  in  that  com- 
munity. Communities  are  also  mutually  inter- 
dependent. A  calamity  to  our  great  wheat- 
fields  in  the  West  would  be  a  calamity  for  New 
York  city,  although  we  have  no  wheat-fields  in 
the  city.  A  financial  calamity  in  New  York 
would  be  a  calamity  to  the  wheat  growers  of 
the  West — and  wider  even,  a  calamity  to  the 
wheat  growers  of  America  means  a  calamity 
to  the  bread  eaters  of  the  world.  The  mutual 
interdependence  of  all  people  has  been  increased, 
and  it  is  this  interdependence  that  has  given 
opportunities  for  the  great  exploitation  of  the 
many  by  the  few.  This  exploitation  is  in  itself 
neither  good  nor  evil.  It  may  result  in  vast 
benefits  to  the  community,  as  well  as  in  benefits 
to  those  in  control.  The  reverse  may  be  true, 
but  usually  the  two  effects  are  mixed.  So  it  is 
not  any  new  human  power  that  has  produced 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         257 

these  great  dangers.  They  are  attributable  to 
the  development  of  our  material  civilization, 
which  has  given  opportunity  for  old  power  to 
show  itself  in  new  forms. 

This  interdependence  has  also  rendered  many 
things  socially  significant  which  in  former  days 
were  largely  individualistic.  For  instance,  years 
ago,  when  our  forefathers  lived  in  small  groups 
of  families,  the  disposal  of  refuse  was  apparently 
a  matter  which  affected  the  health  of  that 
individual  family  alone;  other  families  lived 
far  enough  away  so  as  not  to  be  affected.  The 
making  of  clothing  by  the  family  was  not  of 
social  significance  to  the  whole  community  as 
it  is  at  present.  Now  clothing  made  in  a  home 
where  there  is  scarlet  fever  is  a  menace  to  the 
entire  community.  A  single  case  of  typhoid  in 
a  family  living  near  a  stream  may  now  result, 
and  has  resulted,  in  thousands  of  deaths  in  com- 
munities supplied  with  water  from  the  same 
stream.  This  is  possible  only  under  conditions 
of  water-supply  as  developed  during  city  life. 
It  is  now  a  crime  punishable  by  law  to  erect 
a  wooden  building  within  certain  congested  dis- 
tricts of  large  cities,  because  a  wooden  building 
is  apt  to  burn,  thus  proving  a  menace  to  other 
structures.  In  the  old  days  when  buildings 
stood  isolated,  it  was  a  matter  of  individual 


258        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

choice  what  materials  should  be  used  in  con- 
struction. 

So  we  see  that  in  the  matter  of  unthinking, 
uncontrolled  action,  it  is  not  that  we  are  less 
thoughtful  and  less  controlled  than  in  former 
days,  but  that  we  have  suddenly  had  thrown 
upon  us  the  need  of  self-control  and  thought- 
fulness  in  a  very  large  number  of  new  directions. 
Conscience  is  growing  as  it  has  always  grown, 
but  the  last  century  has  seen  thrust  upon  it  a 
set  of  fresh  burdens  of  an  extent,  complexity, 
and  character  unprecedented  in  scope. 

These  new  deeds  must  be  and  are  being  met 
by  changes  in  the  direction  of  the  development 
of  conscience.  Not  that  anything  new  in  the 
nature  of  conscience  itself  is  being  evolved,  but 
fresh  subjects  are  being  brought  within  its  con- 
sciousness, fresh  applications  are  being  made  of 
self-control.  I  refer  to  that  self-control  which 
is  related  to  the  very  wide  extension  of  the  ef- 
fects of  one's  acts  as  compared  with  former 
days. 

That  system  of  ethics,  and  the  conscience 
that  went  with  it,  which  was  satisfied  by  the 
ideal  of  "visiting  the  fatherless  and  the  widows 
and  keeping  one's  self  unspotted  from  the 
world,'1  has  passed.  It  is  not  enough  to  help 
the  unfortunate  of  our  immediate  environment; 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         250 

the  unit  has  enormously  enlarged,  until  it  em- 
braces the  whole  community.  Conscience  is 
developing  in  civic  directions  and  in  corporate 
directions.  We  have  not  yet  developed  citizens 
in  great  numbers  who  possess  a  civic  conscience, 
but  we  have  some  and  more  are  coming.  The 
last  decade  has  seen  an  enormous  development 
in  the  sensitiveness  of  conscience  to  corporate 
activity,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the 
conscience  of  our  leading  men  is  sensitive  to  cor- 
porate activities  in  a  way  that  it  was  not  ten 
years  ago.  It  is  no  longer  sufficient  for  a  man 
to  lead  a  personally  blameless  life  in  order  to  be 
socially  esteemed  in  the  community.  His  cor- 
porate life  must  not  only  be  free  from  evil,  but 
must  have  in  it  positive  social  good.  It  is  no 
longer  enough  to  pray  and  to  work  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  this  plea,  "Oh  Lord,  bless 
me  and  my  wife,  my  son  John  and  his  wife — 
we  four  and  no  more";  because  these  four  are 
so  bound  up  with  all  the  rest  of  the  community 
that  it  is  impossible  to  single  them  out  either 
for  good  or  evil.  What  affects  them  affects 
the  rest.     We  stand  or  fall  together. 

These  multiplex  ties,  the  very  ones  that  bind 
us  in  modern  society,  are  the  sources  of  a  free- 
dom that  expands  and  gives  us  new  power.  AN  e 
may  have  either  slavery  or  freedom — depending 


260        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

upon  the  kind  of  people  we  are.  If  we  can  use 
freedom,  we  keep  it.  If  we  cannot  use  freedom, 
it  turns  into  license  and  into  slavery — not 
through  the  exercise  of  any  external  power,  but 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  case. 

The  necessity  of  self-control  and  corporate 
civic  conscience  in  a  self-governed  people  may 
be  illustrated  by  any  number  of  historical  cases. 
The  failure  of  Liberia  is  an  instance  to  the 
point.  Here  was  a  community  built  up  of  slaves 
who  had  grown  up  under  conditions  of  autocratic 
control,  who  had  not  developed  the  power  of 
using  freedom,  who  had  not  evolved  a  social 
conscience,  that  kind  of  personal  control  which 
looks  to  the  whole  community  for  its  effects. 
Liberia  failed  not  because  of  the  absence  of  ideals, 
but  because  there  were  not  in  the  community 
enough  persons  who  were  accustomed  to  being 
free. 

The  story  of  the  forty  years'  sojourn  of  the 
Jews  in  the  Wilderness  may  not  be  literally 
true;  it  is,  however,  morally  true.  This  group 
of  former  slaves  had  to  be  kept  on  the  march, 
under  the  rigorous  hygienic  conditions  of  wilder- 
ness life  for  one  whole  generation,  until  there 
could  arise  a  new  generation  that  had  been 
brought  up  under  conditions  of  freedom.  Then 
there  was  a  measurable  degree  of  self-control, 


PLAY  AND   DEMOCRACY         261 

and  the  development  of  property  and  higher 
social  conditions  could  and  did  arise. 

The  difficulties  that  obtain  in  Russia  to-day 
seem  to  be  partly  at  least  due  to  the  absence  of 
a  sufficient  number  of  persons  who  have  learned 
the  first  lessons  of  freedom  in  childhood.  There 
is  no  lack  of  passionate  devotion;  there  is  a 
lack  of  social  control.  Peoples  of  the  world 
have  certainly  failed  from  many  different  causes, 
but  prominent  among  them  is  their  misuse  of 
free  time,  that  is,  the  time  of  their  freedom — 
the  misuse  of  that  which  gives  the  opportunity  for 
the  very  highest  development  of  the  individual. 

The  type  of  freedom  found  in  play  is  the  type 
of  freedom  on  which  democracy  rests.  Is  the 
boy  free  who  is  in  a  gang  ?  In  one  sense  he  has 
very  little  freedom.  If  he  does  not  wear  clothes 
approved  of  by  the  gang,  his  clothes  may  be 
torn  off.  If  ten  members  of  the  gang  want  to 
play  ball,  the  remaining  member  is  not  free  to 
go  to  the  woods.  If  the  others  want  to  steal 
watermelons,  he  is  not  free  to  go  home.  His 
freedom  is  conditioned  by  the  rules  of  the  game 
and  by  the  wishes  of  the  group.  This  is  the  kind 
of  freedom  he  may  expect  later  in  life;  it  is  the 
only  type  of  freedom  which  a  human  being, 
living  in  social  relations,  can  hope  to  secure, 
freedom  conditioned  by  rules  and  by  the  desires 


262        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

of  others,  expressed  in  law.  This  is  the  freedom 
of  a  democracy,  and  the  control  of  a  democracy 
is  mutual-consent  control.  It  is  for  this  free- 
dom and  this  control  that  play  gives  prepara- 
tion and  training. 

Granted  that  the  freedom  from  which  alone 
self-control  can  come  is  one  of  the  best  gifts  of 
play  to  our  civilization,  where  shall  we  look  for 
the  other  requisite  of  democracy,  a  sensitive 
social  consciousness?  In  this  respect,  also,  the 
playground  has  a  tremendous  contribution  to 
make.  Through  the  loyalty  and  self-sacrifice 
developed  in  team  games  by  the  mutual-consent 
control,  we  are  laying  the  foundations  for 
wider  loyalty  and  a  more  discerning  self-devo- 
tion to  the  great  national  ideals  on  which  de- 
mocracy rests.  The  gang  instinct  is  in  some 
respects  anti-social,  because  the  group  is  limited, 
but  it  marks  the  beginning  of  real  social  con- 
sciousness. 

A  great  play  festival  was  held  in  Chicago  in 
1907.  Large  groups  of  the  various  peoples  of 
that  city  came  together  and  presented  their 
national  dances,  expressing  the  ties  that  bound 
them  to  their  own  pasts  and  uniting  with  other 
citizens  in  a  spirit  of  civic  unity.  It  was  an 
occasion  of  great  significance  in  the  welding  to- 
gether of  diverse  elements  of  our  nation. 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         203 

The  immigrants  coming  to  America  have 
frequently  been  made  to  feel  that  their  past 
was  not  wanted.  The  smart  young  American 
has  not  understood  the  traditions  of  the  country 
from  which  his  parents  came.  He  has  failed  to 
understand  the  significance  of  their  national  and 
folk-dances,  the  historic  traditions  which  help 
to  tie  the  individual  in  a  community  to  that 
which  is  wholesome  in  the  past,  as  well  as  to 
express  that  which  is  necessary  in  the  present. 

The  need  of  developing  a  new  country  has 
taught  us  the  necessity  of  work.  We  have  yet 
to  learn  the  place  of  play  and  recreation — 
not  as  individuals,  but  as  social  units — for  we 
do  not  live  as  individuals,  but  as  parts  of  a  social 
whole.  These  folk-dances  and  games  in  which 
many  individuals  can  participate  afford  one  of 
the  few  avenues  that  exist  for  the  expression  of 
mass  feeling.  The  spirit  of  unity  has  been 
developed  as  much  by  these  exhibitions  of  com- 
mon feeling  as  by  the  mere  fact  of  working  to- 
gether. Working  together  in  some  industry  or 
factory  may  instil  into  the  coworkers  a  kind  of 
unity  or  sympathy;  but  the  getting  together 
on  an  occasion  of  freedom  where  they  can  express 
their  joy  in  a  symbolic  dance  operates  far  more 
effectively  in  bringing  about  this  consciousness 
of  the  whole. 


£64         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

Some  years  ago,  at  the  instigation  of  a  com- 
mittee, the  Greeks  of  Chicago  presented  "  Ajax," 
an  old  Greek  play.  The  effect  upon  the  Grecian 
workers  of  the  city  was  astonishing.  They  came 
to  be  conscious  of  themselves  as  a  people.  It 
was  not  merely  a  performance  done  for  the  en- 
joyment of  others;  it  was  a  recognition  of  their 
common  historic  past  and  of  its  tie  with  the  pres- 
ent. It  is  not  by  chance  that  the  peoples  of  the 
world  have  developed  their  dances  and  other 
means  for  celebrating  occasions.  We  Americans 
need  these  occasions  also,  for  we  are  built  of  the 
same  stuff  as  are  the  other  nations.  Celebra- 
tions of  this  type  are  not  merely  entertaining; 
they  meet  a  deep  need  that  we  all  feel — the  need 
for  community  action.  The  time  wTill  surely 
come  when  every  city  will  have  developed  its 
own  celebrations,  when  those  holidays  that  be- 
long to  all  in  common  shall  have  acquired  an  art 
form  in  which  they  may  be  adequately  expressed. 

Democracy  must  thus  provide  not  only  a  seat 
and  instruction  for  every  child  in  the  school,  but 
also  play  and  good  play  traditions  for  every  child 
in  a  playground.  Without  the  development  of 
the  social  conscience — which  has  its  roots  in  the 
early  activities  of  the  playground — we  cannot 
expect  adults  to  possess  those  higher  feelings, 
which  rest  upon  the  earlier  social  virtues  de- 


PLAY  AND  DEMOCRACY         °65 

veloped  during  childhood.  The  sand  pile  for 
the  small  child,  the  playground  for  the  middle- 
sized  child,  the  athletic  field  for  the  boy,  folk- 
dancing  and  social  ceremonial  life  for  the  boy 
and  the  girl  in  the  teens,  wholesome  means  of 
social  relationships  during  adult  life — these 
are  fundamental  conditions  without  which  de- 
mocracy cannot  continue,  because  upon  them 
rests  the  development  of  that  self-control  which 
is  related  to  an  appreciation  of  the  needs  of  the 
rest  of  the  group  and  of  the  corporate  conscience 
that  is  rendered  necessary  by  the  complex  inter- 
dependence of  modern  life. 


CHAPTER   XX 


PLAY,  THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL 

JACOB  MIS  told  the  story  of  a  little  sick 
girl  who  had  been  hungry  a  long  time,  and 
who  did  not  have  sufficient  clothing  to 
protect  her  from  the  biting  cold.  Some  good 
friend  who  discovered  her  asked  what  more  than 
anything  else  she  would  like  to  have.  She  re- 
plied :  "  Can  I  have  just  what  I  want  ?  "  "Yes,'5 
was  the  answer.  "What  I  want,"  said  the  little 
girl,  "is  a  pair  of  red  shoes." 

There  are  things  in  life  more  important  than 
bread.  To  that  little  girl  red  shoes  meant 
beauty,  the  thing  desired,  the  ideal.  Many 
persons  who  have  been  in  the  cold  without  suffi- 
cient clothing,  food,  or  shelter,  because  they  pos- 
sessed the  things  of  life  that  for  them  were  ideal, 
have  been  happy  and  have  lived  wholesome 
lives.  The  reason  for  the  coarseness  and  sordid- 
ness  of  the  great  mass  of  people  is  not  their  lack 
of  sufficient  food,  shelter,  and  clothing.  It  lies 
in  the  fact  that  they  have  not  been  successful 
in  the  pursuit  of  other  than  material  things.     Or 

266 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL    267 

quite  possibly  it  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  have 
not  even  pursued  these  other  aims.  They  have 
had  no  ideal  which  meant  more  to  them  than 
comfort.  They  have  been  driven  by  necessity, 
not  by  desire. 

Play  is  what  we  do  when  we  are  free  to  do 
what  we  will.  It  is  the  spontaneous  expression 
of  the  inner  desire.  A  father  came  home  one 
day  and  found  his  nine-year-old  daughter  writ- 
ing busily.  Face  and  hands  indicated  extreme 
tension  and  severe  labor.  He  asked  her  what 
she  was  doing,  and  she  replied:  "Please  don't 
disturb  me.  I  am  doing  something  very  im- 
portant. I  am  on  the  entertainment  committee 
of  the  Saturday  Afternoon  Club,  and  I  am  writ- 
ing the  programme."  It  was  finally  produced 
as  follows: 

1.  Praise  God  from  Whom  All  Blessings  Flow. 

2.  My  Country,  'Tis  of  Thee. 

3.  Waltz. 

4.  Come  Ye  That  Love  the  Lord. 

5.  Two-step. 

6.  I  Need  Thee  Every  Hour. 

7.  Love  Divine,  All  Love  Excelling. 

8.  Hark  !  the  Herald  Angels  Sing. 

9.  Irish  Dance. 

10.  Spanish  Dance. 

11.  Where  Is  My  Wandering  Boy  To-night? 

12.  Barn  Dance. 

13.  God  Be  With  You  Till  We  Meet  Again. 


268         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

Here  was  the  human  spirit  expressing  itself 
freely,  fully,  like  a  field  flower.  Fortunate, 
indeed,  are  they  who  retain  this  spirit  for  man- 
hood and  womanhood — adding  only  work  !  Re- 
ligious feeling,  play,  and  work — a  balanced  life. 
We  labor  now  magnificently,  but  the  two  other 
avenues  of  expression  die  young.  Another  age 
may  have  to  expend  its  best  energy  in  getting  us 
back  to  dance,  pray,  and  play. 

The  work  which  the  world  counts  really  great 
has  been  done  in  this  spirit  of  free  self-expres- 
sion, which  is  also  the  spirit  of  play.  The 
poems  of  the  world,  the  great  statues,  the  great 
paintings  of  the  world — these  are  not  produced 
under  compulsion.  The  Portuguese  Sonnets 
were  not  a  product  of  economic  necessity.  One 
cannot  conceive  of  the  work  of  Rodin  being  pro- 
duced because  of  the  need  of  the  money  which 
it  brought.  While  he  was  doing  the  work 
into  which  he  was  putting  his  life,  he  was 
supporting  himself  by  laboring  in  a  factory 
where  images  are  made  for  the  trade;  but  his 
life  interest  lay  in  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal.  That 
is  the  contribution  by  which  the  world  remem- 
bers him.  The  famous  violin-makers,  who  loved 
their  instruments  and  could  hardly  bear  to  part 
with  them,  worked  because  they  enjoyed  it. 
They  were  not  impelled  by  necessity,  but  by 
desire. 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE   IDEAL    269 

I  talked  with  a  tool-maker  in  Pratt  Institute, 
and  as  I  picked  up  a  two-part  tool  that  he  had 
just  made,  I  said: 

"How  closely  does  it  fit?" 

He  answered:  'I  don't  know";  but  he  added 
that  it  fitted  closer  than  one-thousandth  of  an 
inch. 

I  said:   "Why  can't  you  tell?" 

To  which  he  replied:  "I  have  no  calipers  that 
will  register  closer  than  that." 

I  said:  "Is  it  necessary  to  fit  it  so  closely  ?' 

"No,"  he  said,  "it  is  not." 

I  said:  "Why  do  you  do  it?" 

Then  he  just  looked  at  me.  That  man's  work 
was  his  life.  He  was  expressing  himself  as  did 
the  old  violin-makers;  he  was  pursuing  his  ideal. 
It  was  not  the  lash  of  economic  necessity  that 
was  driving  him,  nor  the  scourge  of  public  opin- 
ion. 

That  is  what  I  mean  by  play,  and  that  is  what 
play  really  is.  It  is  not  something  less  than 
work.  It  means  a  difference  in  mental  attitude. 
One  may  play  when  ploughing,  or  cooking,  or 
experimenting,  or  reading  poems — or  one  may 
work.  One  attitude  is  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal; 
the  other  is  a  mere  acceptance  of  the  compul- 
sions of  life.  Play  as  a  matter  of  fact  slides 
over  into  what  is  called  work,  but  the  glorious 
thing  about  life  is  that  usually  the  great  work 


270        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

is  play.  Not  only  the  work  which  becomes  fa- 
mous may  be  done  from  the  standpoint  of  play, 
but  all  work  that  is  worth  doing.  The  teacher 
who  loves  to  teach,  the  business  man  who  is 
fascinated  by  "the  game,"  the  inventor  who 
forgets  sleep  because  of  interest  in  that  which  he 
is  bringing  into  the  world,  the  mother  who  does 
her  tasks  with  joy  born  of  love  for  her  children — 
all  these  are  acting  from  desire.  They  are  ex- 
pressing themselves  freely;  they  are  playing. 

When  a  boy  has  rigged  up  a  little  paddle- 
wheel  in  the  stream  in  the  meadow  and  has  de- 
vised a  way  by  which  a  thread  may  be  attached 
to  the  axle  and  a  small  block  of  wood  hauled 
up  against  the  current,  he  has  done  essentially 
what  Edison  does  when  he  has  been  evolving 
a  new  electrical  attachment.  In  the  absorption 
of  the  occupation  he  has  forgotten  all  about  his 
meals;  everything  else  has  become  of  no  conse- 
quence; the  enthusiasm  and  joy  of  a  certain  ideal 
have  taken  possession  of  him.  That  is  play. 
It  is  the  spontaneous  enlistment  of  the  entire 
personality  in  the  pursuit  of  some  coveted  end. 
We  are  not  compelled  to  pursue  this  goal;  we 
wish  to  pursue  it,  for  it  is  our  main  desire.  In 
the  light  of  it  everything  else — dinners,  punish- 
ments, the  world's  opinion — become  inconse- 
quential. We  have  not  taken  possession  of  the 
idea;  the  idea  has  taken  possession  of  us. 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE   IDEAL    271 

Play  does  not  mean  the  omission  of  difficulties, 
or  even  of  hard  labor.  A  boy  playing  a  game 
may  work  harder  than  he  could  possibly  be  made 
to  work  by  any  other  means.  He  may  not  en- 
joy all  the  details  of  the  play,  the  training  for 
athletic  sports,  the  hard  practice,  the  defeats. 
But  he  accepts  them  because  he  has  chosen  the 
game;  and  he  knows  that  the  game  involves 
rules.  He  will  submit  to  the  rules  because  they 
are  necessary  for  the  end  he  desires.  Similarly, 
a  man  who  does  his  work  because  of  desire  will 
submit  to  endless  detail  and  routine  if  it  is  neces- 
sary for  the  accomplishing  of  the  work.  It  is 
not  drudgery,  forced  upon  him  from  an  external 
group;  it  may  be  hard,  it  may  be  wearying;  but 
it  is  that  which  he  himself  has  chosen  to  do.  He 
does  it  because  he  wishes  to  do  it,  and  for  no 
other  reason. 

This  play  attitude  may  be  deliberately  as- 
sumed in  the  face  of  the  tasks  of  life.  A  boy  who 
was  compelled  to  work  in  the  wood-shed  showed 
his  imagination  by  pretending  that  the  blocks 
of  wood  were  Indians  whom  he  was  attacking. 
The  difference  in  attitude  made  the  whole  dif- 
ference in  the  enjoyment  of  the  work.  Two  sis- 
ters who  had  been  quarrelling  in  their  play  were 
suddenly  heard  to  say:  "Let's  play  sisters." 
From  that  time  on  they  played  harmoniously, 
fulfilling    their    ideal    of    the    sisterly    relation. 


272        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

There  was  a  difference  between  being  sisters  and 
playing  sisters:  in  the  first  case  the  condition 
was  imposed,  in  the  second  case  the  relation  was 
a  chosen  one,  an  ideal  to  be  worked  out  in  action. 
Kipling  has  given  classic  expression  to  this 
joy  in  work  for  the  work's  sake  in  his  "L'Envoi" : 

"And  no  one  shall  work  for  money,  and  no  one  shall 

work  for  fame; 
But  each  for  the  joy  of  the  working,  and  each,  in 

his  separate  star, 
Shall  draw  the  Thing  as  he  sees  It  for  the  God  of 

Things  as  They  Are!" 

The  phrase  "Art  for  art's  sake/5'  although  it 
has  become  distorted  from  its  original  meaning, 
had  this  idea  back  of  it,  that  any  work  worthy 
of  being  considered  aesthetic  must  be  done  for  the 
joy  of  the  process.  The  attitude  of  play  can  be 
taken  deliberately  under  much  less  promising 
circumstances  than  those  in  which  the  artist  is 
situated.  Many  adults,  compelled  to  do  tasks 
which  seemed  in  themselves  uncongenial,  have 
quite  consciously  done  as  the  small  boy  did  with 
the  logs  in  the  wood-shed;  they  have  made  a 
game  of  their  work.  This  is  possible  even  under 
difficult  conditions,  and  it  usually  requires  much 
less  mental  effort  to  stimulate  desire  than  to  do 
the  work  from  the  sheer  heave  of  duty  and  with 
a  dissenting  spirit. 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL    273 

The  way  in  which  the  feeling  of  the  game  may 
be  taken  into  the  affairs  of  life,  giving  power 
and  the  ability  to  endure  to  the  end,  has  been 
stirringly  expressed  by  Henry  Newbolt,  in  a 
poem  describing  how  the  spirit  of  the  cricket 
match  saved  the  day  for  a  British  regiment  on 
the  battle-field. 

"There's  a  breathless  hush  in  the  Close  to-night — 
Ten  to  make  and  the  match  to  win — 
A  bumping  pitch  and  a  blinding  light, 
An  hour  to  play  and  the  last  man  in. 
And  it's  not  for  the  sake  of  a  ribboned  coat 
Or  the  selfish  hope  of  a  season's  fame, 
But  his  captain's  hand  on  his  shoulder  smote — 
'Play  up  !  play  up !  and  play  the  game !' 

The  sand  of  the  desert  is  sodden  red — 
Red  with  the  wreck  of  the  square  that  broke; 
The  Gatling's  jammed  and  the  colonel  dead, 
And  the  regiment  blind  with  the  dust  and  smoke. 
The  river  of  death  has  brimmed  its  banks 
And  England's  far  and  Honor  a  name 
But  the  voice  of  a  schoolboy  rallies  the  ranks: 
'Play  up  !  play  up  !  and  play  the  game  \9 

This  is  the  word  that  year  by  year, 
While  in  her  place  the  school  is  set, 
Every  one  of  her  sons  must  hear 
And  none  that  hears  it  dare  forget. 
This  they  all  with  a  joyful  mind 
Bear  through  life  like  a  torch  in  flame, 
And,  falling,  fling  to  the  host  behind — 
'Play  up  !  play  up  !  and  play  the  game ! 


» ?> 


274         A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

That  is  what  life  is,  at  its  highest  and  best — 
a  playing  of  the  game,  a  pursuing  of  the  ideal 
under  the  rules  and  limiting  conditions  necessary 
for  this  pursuit.  The  pursuit  is  an  end  in  itself. 
The  goal  of  life  is  not  found  in  any  definite  ac- 
quisition of  pleasure;  and,  curiously  enough, 
children  do  not  play  for  pleasure.  The  boy 
does  not  say:  "It  will  give  me  pleasure  to  play 
marbles.''  He  says:  "I  want  to  play  marbles." 
He  does  not  think  of  the  pleasurable  state  of 
feeling  that  will  occur  when  he  secures  a  jack- 
knife.  He  thinks  of  the  knife  and  wants  it. 
It  is  only  the  sophisticated  person  who  says: 
"It  will  give  me  pleasure  to  eat  these  grapes." 
The  ordinary  person  thinks  of  the  grapes  and 
wants  them.  Pleasure  comes  with  the  eating, 
but  rarely  abides  in  consciousness  as  something 
to  be  sought.  We  do  not  choose  because  of  the 
pleasure;  we  choose  because  we  have  the  desire. 
Desire  and  not  pleasure  is  the  ultimate  mo- 
tive. 

The  real  satisfaction  of  life  is  not  found  in  any 
end  that  is  attained.  One  of  my  children  made 
a  doll's  house  with  a  very  complete  set  of  furni- 
ture, with  pictures  on  the  walls,  a  piano,  a  bed 
and  bedclothes.  She  seemed  possessed  with  the 
desire  for  a  doll's  house  and  worked  at  it  intensely 
from  early  morning  until  late  at  night.     But 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL    275 

she  did  not  want  the  doll's  house  when  it  was 
completed.  At  that  moment  her  satisfaction 
in  it  began  to  lessen.  The  doll's  house  was  not 
the  real  end.  A  man  worked  with  great  en- 
thusiasm over  the  logical  structure  of  logarithms, 
sitting  up  all  night  to  learn  it.  He  thought  his 
motive  was  that  he  wanted  to  use  that  particular 
knowledge  later.  But  he  never  cared  to  use  it 
afterward;  his  joy  was  in  the  accomplishment, 
not  in  the  thing  acquired.  Boys  will  work  for 
hours  or  days  to  make  a  house  or  a  wagon,  and 
their  satisfaction  wanes  the  moment  the  object 
is  completed.  It  is  a  common  experience  for 
men  to  set  a  mark  beyond  which  they  will  not 
go  in  the  earning  of  money.  But  that  mark  is 
passed  again  and  again,  and  still  they  keep  at 
their  work. 

Our  minds  are  so  constructed  that  they  draw 
curtains  over  past  achievements.  We  are  not 
satisfiable  beings.  Choice  is  not  to  be  regarded 
as  existing  for  the  sake  of  any  definite  content  of 
pleasure,  nor  for  the  end  to  be  attained.  We 
want  something  and  get  it,  and  at  once  it  is  be- 
hind us.  So  long  as  we  have  it  not,  we  long  for 
it,  and  our  hearts  go  out  after  it.  We  use  every 
feeling  of  earnestness  and  passion  for  its  attain- 
ment, and  then  when  we  get  it,  it  is  gone  from 
our  desire  and  we  strive  for  some  other  thing. 


276        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

The  essence  of  choice  is  not  in  the  end,  but  in  the 
choosing.  In  the  doing  is  the  result.  Happiness 
is  not  in  the  attainment,  but  in  the  attaining. 
"Life  is  in  the  quest." 

President  Hadley  has  drawn  attention  to  this 
fact,  that  we  are  moved  by  the  splendor  of  the 
action  rather  than  by  the  tangible  results. 
"Turn  back  over  the  pages  of  history  to  the 
stories  that  have  most  moved  men's  hearts,  and 
what  are  they  ?  Stories  of  action,  deeds  of  dar- 
ing, where  the  risk  habitually  outweighed  the 
chance  of  practical  results.  Nay,  the  most  in- 
spiring of  them  are  often  manifestations  of  hope- 
less bravery,  where  the  likelihood  of  success 
was  absolutely  nil.  When  we  read  of  the  soldiers 
of  Gustavus  Adolphus's  regiment  at  Lutzen,  who 
after  the  loss  of  their  king  stood  firm  in  their 
ranks  until  the  line  of  the  dead  was  as  straight  as 
had  been  the  line  of  the  living  on  dress  parade; 
when  we  hear  of  the  Cumberland  at  Hampton 
Roads  waging  the  hopeless  fight  of  wood  against 
iron,  and  keeping  the  flag  afloat  at  the  mast- 
head, when  the  vessel  and  all  who  remained  in 
her  had  sunk;  when  we  remember  the  tale  of  the 
Alamo,  in  whose  courtyard  and  hospital  a  hand- 
ful of  American  frontiersmen  fought  the  army  of 
Mexico,  without  hope  of  victory,  but  without  a 
thought  of  retreat  or  surrender,  till  they  earned 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL    277 

by  the  very  completeness  of  their  annihilation 
the  glory  of  that  monumental  inscription: 
'Thermopylae  had  its  messenger  of  defeat;  the 
Alamo  had  none' — then  do  we  see  how  hollow 
is  our  pretense  of  valuing  things  by  results,  when 
we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  really  heroic 
struggles  of  life.  It  is  the  doing  that  makes  the 
deed  worthy  of  record,  not  the  material  out- 
come." 

The  first  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  these 
facts  about  human  choice  and  free  play  is  that 
life,  self-activity,  is  an  end  in  itself.  This  is  true 
all  the  way  up  the  human  scale;  it  is  as  true  for 
the  child  as  for  the  adult.  The  man  who  is  will- 
ing to  brush  aside  the  child's  feeling  about  play, 
thinking  of  his  activities  as  mere  preparation, 
completely  misunderstands  the  nature  of  human 
life.  That  child  is  now  living  the  human  life, 
his  feelings  are  the  same  and  the  results  of  living 
are  the  same  to  that  child  as  they  will  always  be. 
Though  the  process  be  with  purely  imaginary 
objects,  though  the  child  be  making  an  imaginary 
currant  jelly  with  an  imaginary  dish  on  an  im- 
aginary stove,  the  process  is  real.  And  the  proc- 
ess is  an  end  in  itself.  The  impulse  to  play  is 
the  impulse  to  express  oneself,  to  function,  to 
live.  We  make  great  slaughter  of  our  own  and 
our  children's  lives  when  we  think  of  ourselves  or 


278        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

of  them  as  preparing  to  live.  Life  is  now;  the 
present  process  is  the  real  end  of  desire  and  of 
choice. 

Simply  because  this  is  a  real  process,  not  an 
imaginary  one,  is  there  a  succession  in  desires. 
The  nature  of  the  desires  that  hold  us  through 
life,  that  make  us  endure  pain,  that  keep  us 
joyously  at  our  tasks,  varies  with  our  develop- 
ment. There  is  a  constant  conflict  of  different 
desires.  The  boy  wants  to  play,  but  he  also 
wants  to  eat.  He  wants  to  please  his  mother, 
and  he  wants  to  please  himself.  The  man  wants 
to  hunt,  but  he  also  wants  to  succeed  in  business. 
There  is  a  conflict,  and  the  nature  of  the  man 
will  determine  whether  he  shall  leave  his  busi- 
ness and  go  hunting,  or  give  up  hunting  and 
keep  to  his  business.  These  purely  egoistic  de- 
sires remain  in  some  form  throughout  life.  The 
joy  of  skill  in  manual  work  belongs  to  this  group 
of  pleasures. 

This  conflict  is  constantly  renewed  on  a  higher 
plane.  There  is  tremendous  joy  in  competition; 
the  boy's  whole  life  is  poured  out  in  the  pas- 
sionate desire  to  win.  But  certain  forms  of 
fighting  must  injure  boys  who  are  friends  of  his. 
The  old  desire  to  fight  his  chum  may  give  way  to 
a  new  desire  to  stand  by  him.  There  is  a  higher 
pleasure  in  self-sacrifice  for  those  whom  we  love 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL    270 

than  there  is  in  competition  with  them.  If  the 
man  grows  wholesomely,  he  will  come,  at  last,  to 
have  a  love  for  his  city,  his  country;  he  will 
work  and  sacrifice  for  it,  not  from  a  sense  of 
duty,  in  the  unpleasant  use  of  that  word,  but  be- 
cause he  wants  to,  because  he  loves  his  city.  He 
has  the  same  kind  of  feeling  of  satisfaction  in 
service  that  the  little  boy  had  in  building  block- 
houses. He  is  doing  it  from  an  inner  impulse, 
from  the  stress  of  desire. 

Desire  is  a  greater  word  than  duty.  It  is  a 
fine  thing  to  do  right  when  one  does  not  wish  to 
do  right;  but  it  is  a  finer  thing  to  desire  the  right. 
It  is  a  mother's  duty  to  care  for  her  child.  But 
the  mother  who  stays  awake  at  night,  who  sacri- 
fices herself  for  her  sick  baby  just  because  it  is 
her  duty,  is  living  on  a  low  level  compared 
with  the  woman  who  does  all  this  and  more 
because  she  wishes  to  do  it,  because  she  loves 
the  child.  The  man  who  "does  his  duty"  to 
his  wife  never  does  his  whole  duty.  I  knew  a 
man  who  noted  in  his  pocket  memorandum  cer- 
tain days  when  he  would  take  flowers  to  his 
wife.  He  regarded  it  as  a  married  man's  duty 
to  pay  these  attentions  to  his  wife  just  as  he 
had  done  before  marriage;  so  at  stated  and 
regular  intervals  he  purchased  flowers.  But 
the  highest  expression  of  life  loses  its  chief  value 


280        A  PHILOSOPHY  OF  PLAY 

if  it  is  done  from  a  sense  of  duty;    the  highest 
expression  of  life  must  be  one  of  desire. 

The  growth  of  personality  is  shown  by  the 
change  in  the  things  we  desire.  One  day  my 
twelve-year-old  daughter  came  to  me  for  a 
talk.  She  had  noticed,  she  said,  that  the  girls 
of  thirteen  and  fourteen  in  our  neighborhood 
had  stopped  playing  with  dolls,  and  had  also 
stopped  "hitching'  to  grocer  wagons  and  other 
vehicles.  She  said:  "I  have  made  up  my 
mind  that  I  am  going  to  ' hitch'  until  I  am  eight- 
een, and  I  am  going  to  play  with  dolls  until  I 
am  twenty."  She  also  fixed  some  other  dates. 
I  replied:  "Why  do  you  make  up  your  mind 
about  it?  Why  not  just  do  it  as  long  as  you 
want  to?'  She  answered:  "I  want  to  until 
then.  I  know  I  shall  want  to  until  then.  But 
it  will  be  a  little  hard,  because  the  other  girls 
will  stop  doing  it,  and  I  shall  have  to  do  it  alone." 
She  was  giving  almost  perfect  expression  of  the 
state  of  mind  in  which  many  of  us  face  the 
joys  of  life.  We  hold  on  to  them;  we  are  afraid 
to  let  them  go.  We  want  the  present  main- 
tained in  the  future,  not  realizing  that  the  pres- 
ent joy  may  be  a  stepping-stone  to  a  larger  one. 
But  just  as  the  baby  enjoys  playing  with  his 
toes,  and  that  joy  serves  its  turn  and  passes 
into  the  background  of  consciousness  to  make 


THE  PURSUIT  OF  THE  IDEAL    281 

room  for  greater  joys  made  possible  by  greater 
powers,  so  for  adults  this  constant  progression 
is  not  only  possible  but  necessary  for  the  fullest 
life. 

We  must  go  forward  to  new  joys  and  new 
activities  as  spontaneously  and  gladly  as  a  child 
goes  forward  to  new  plays.  When  we  have 
reached  adult  years,  and  have  become  self- 
conscious  in  our  joys,  the  new  truth  may  hurt 
at  first.  Even  the  small  boy  is  hurt  by  the 
discovery  that  there  is  no  Santa  Claus,  unless 
this  discovery  comes  to  him  in  connection  with 
a  larger  truth.  The  youth  who  learns  that  the 
earth  is  not  flat  and  that  the  world  is  merely  a 
speck  in  the  universe,  may  feel  miserably  small 
for  a  few  days.  The  greater  truth  has  not  yet 
made  its  way.  And  the  world  has  ostracized 
and  killed  those  who  brought  new  truth  to  it. 
The  fear  of  losing  the  present  good  is  a  natural 
fear,  but  it  may  be  overcome  by  the  conscious 
realization  of  the  fact  that  the  process  of  life  is 
continuous,  that  the  new  is  built  upon  and  per- 
fects the  old,  that,  as  Browning  has  said  in  his 
"Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  "The  best  is  yet  to  be." 


INDEX 


Adult: 

Basket-ball: 

Play. 

113 

Woman's  reaction  to, 

Aesthetics: 

84,  89 

93,  97 

Feeling,  produced  by  smoke,  54 

Bear: 

In  house  play, 

73 

Hunt,  in  tribe  play, 

205 

Altruism  : 

Beauty: 

Man's,  developed  through  tribe, 

Desire  for. 

266 

89,  98 

Berlin  : 

Team  games,  altruism  from, 

Play  of  small  children  in, 

14 

150,  194 

Bird: 

Woman's,     developed 

through 

Instincts,                 104,  111,  200 

home, 

93,  97 

Interest  in  birds. 

172 

Anglo-Saxon: 

"Black  man": 

16 

Play,                   3d,  147, 

154,  162 

Blackbird: 

Animal: 

Instinct  to  sing  of. 

200 

Play, 

99 

Block: 

Arithmetic: 

City,  for  play, 

228 

Teaching  of, 

180 

Play  with  blocks, 

69,  225 

Art: 

Boat: 

Play  impulse  in. 

268 

Construction, 

68 

Astronomy: 

Body: 

Interest  in, 

172 

Control  in  play. 

149 

Athletics: 

Boston: 

Boy  character  shaped  by,        91 

Playgrounds, 

7 

Discipline  of,  for  women,         97 

Boxing  : 

22,  29 

Origin  of, 

28,  90 

Boy: 

Track,  interest  in, 

188 

Exercise  of  small, 

156 

Womanliness  and, 

92 

Gangs, 

IM 

Imitation  of, 

M8 

Baby: 

Initiation  ceremonies  of. 

MM 

Climbing  attempts  of, 

243 

Subnormal, 

Lf8 

Girls'  love  for, 

79 

Unrestrained, 

MP7 

Play  of, 

184 

Building: 

Baseball: 

Blocks, 

71 

American  game, 

197 

Bull  fight: 

Interest  in,          1,  3,  4, 

171,  239 

In  Spain, 

22 

Money  spent  on,  114 

Origin  of,  198 

Speed  of,  163 


Camp  Fire  Girls: 
Fire  ceremonies  of, 


64 


283 


284 


INDEX 


4 

100,  106 

241 
113 


Cat: 
Game  of, 
Play  of, 

"Cat's  cradle": 
In  Borneo, 

Census: 
Play, 

Character: 

Development    from    continued 
abode,  43 

Chicago: 

Playgrounds,  7 

Chicken: 

Chirping  of,  in  egg,  99 

Child: 

City,  opportunities  of,  229 

Defective,  in  school,  168 

Home  life  of,  220 

Initiation  of  savage,  201 

Institution,  play  of,  137 

Life  in  play,  277 

Older,  play  space  for,  13 

School  life  of,  217 

Small,  play  space  for,  13 

Subnormal,  128 

Work  of,  with  parents,  214 

Church: 

Grounds,  use  of,  227 

City: 

Craps,  a  city  game,  238 

Life,  and  the  individual,        257 
Life,  and  shelter  feeling,  43 

Modern  industrial,  255 

Play  in  modern,  224,  228 

Populations,  212 

Civilization: 

And  play,  211 

Club: 

Boys',  5 

Communitt: 

Action,  264 

Interdependence    of    communi- 
ties, 256 
Play,                                         222 
Traditions  carried  by,            237 

Competition: 

Boys'  plays  characterized  by,  83 


Early  play  and,  149 

Middle  life  and,  188 

Morals,  effect  of  competition  on, 

189 
Origin  of,  90,  187 

Women's,  97 

Concentration  : 

Children's,  in  play,  12 

Conflict: 

Life  a  conflict  of  desires,       278 

Conscience: 
Civic,  258 

Construction: 

House,  38 

Ownership  and,  67 

Continuity: 

Affected  by  city  living,  43 

Control: 

Body,  in  early  play,        148,  185 
Mutual  consent, 

206,  245,  247,  262 
Play,  206,  232,  240 

Playground,  230,  244 

Self-,  and  democracy,  265 

Self-,  and  obedience,  251 

Social,  254 

Cooking: 

Fire  play,  50 

House  play,  5,  39,  45 

Social  significance  of,  46 

Co-ordination  : 

Feeble-minded,  co-ordination  of, 

131,  133 
Muscular,  through  rhythm,  136 
Neural,  in  throwing,  84 

Neuro-muscular,  early  in  life,  185 
Play,  from  simple  to  complex, 

153,  165 

Courage: 

Fighting  plays,  and,  30 

Craps: 

A  city  game,  238 

Cricket: 

English  football,  197 

Fighting,  21 

Curriculum: 

Kindergarten  play,  182 


INDEX 


2a 


Play,  175 

School,  176 
Custom  : 

Social,  from  shelter  feeling,  40 

Dance  : 

Folk,  in  America,  236,  242 

Folk,  for  feeble-minded,         136 
Folk,  at  play  festival,  262 

Hall,  evils  of,  121 

Hall  statistics,  115 

Democracy: 

Play  and,  243 

Desire: 

Feeble-minded,  lack  of  desire  of, 

128,  133,  135 
Great  achievements,  desire  pres- 
ent in,  180 
Knowledge,  desire  for,  183 
Life  motive,  266 
Play  characterized  by,   127,  177 

Dog: 

Fighting  feeling  in,  201 

Hunting  feeling  in,  111 

Play,  102,  105,  106,  110 

Dolng  : 

Joy  in,  274 

Doll: 


Boy's  reaction  to,               83,  86 

Girl's  reaction  to, 

85 

Play, 

74 

Social  value  of, 

94 

Duluth: 

Playgrounds  of, 

231 

Duty: 

Desire  greater  than, 

279 

Eating  : 

Social,  relations  of, 

46 

Education: 

Home,  passing  of, 

217 

Physical,  of  feeble-minded, 

136 

Play  and, 

171 

Popular, 

254 

Electricity  : 

Interest  in, 

173 

Endurance: 

Play,  endurance  learned  in,    1 
Energy: 

Absenceof,  in  feeble-minded.  1 
Epoch: 

Culture,  play  theory,  1 1 1 

Ethics  : 

Freedom  and,  249,  2".  1 

Modern,  168 

Playground,  945 

Exaltation  : 

Play,  19 

Example  : 

Play,  234,  2:5!) 

Power  of,  219 

Exercise  : 

Boy's,  aged  four,  156 

Boy's,  aged  two  and  a  half,     157 
Experience: 

Learning  by,  243 

Exploitation  : 

Present-day,  254,  256 

Falling: 

Lessons  in,  243 

Family: 

Development    of,    from    shelter 
feeling,  11.  lA 

Life,  change  in,  215,219 

Relations  through  doll  play,     78 
Farm  : 

Work,  116 

Fatigue: 

School.  176 

Fear: 

Feeling  of,  in  play,  16 

Fire,  •~,,;.  58 

Feeble-minded: 

Play  of,  \M 

Feeling: 

Domestii-.  centred  <>n  doO,      I  I 

Fire  the  symbol  «>f. 
Festival: 

Play,  Chicago,  Wi 

Fightin.;: 

InstiiKt  in  terrii  W1 

Interest  in,  1  *  ' 


286 


INDEX 


Literature,  fighting  ir 

i,              22 

Genealogy: 

Plays, 

16,  29,  83 

Interest  in, 

173 

Prize,  interest  in, 

1,  21,  23 

Geometry: 

Fire: 

Study  of, 

175 

Camp  Fire  Girls'  use 

of,           64 

Girl: 

Fear, 

56,  58 

Little  sick, 

266 

Play, 

49 

Work  of,  in  home, 

216 

Religious  significance 

of,          60 

Growth  : 

School  fires, 

248 

City, 

212 

Social  significance  of, 

61 

Moral,  and  play, 

184 

Symbol  of  feeling, 

63 

Play  an  indicator  of, 

133 

Fishing  : 

Play  in  relation  to, 

152,  155 

Interest  in. 

6,  142 

Time  for, 

181 

Folk  dance: 

Guidance: 

See  Dance. 

Play, 

195,  199 

Food: 

Guinea  pig: 

Play.     See  Cooking. 

Play  of, 

105 

Football: 

Gymnastics: 

Interest  in, 

2,  171,  188 

Fatigue  of, 

157 

Player,  interest  in, 

208 

Inadequacy  of. 

162 

Soccer, 

197 

School,  aim  of, 

168 

Fourth  of  July: 

Undue  demand  in, 

176 

Celebration, 

116 

Fox: 

Habit  : 

Play  of. 

106 

Formation  of, 

182 

Freedom  : 

Haddon,  Dr.: 

Ethics  of, 

251 

Cat's  cradle  in  Borneo, 

241 

Play, 

208,  245 

Heredity  : 

Use  of, 

259 

Social, 

202 

Friendship: 

Establishment  of, 
Froebel: 

144 

Hoarding: 
Instinct  of, 

80 

Play  theory, 

vi,  182 

Holidays: 

Celebration  of. 

236 

Game: 

Home: 

Carrying  of  game  traditions, 

Authority  in. 

249 

204 

Changes  in, 

216 

Development  of  games,          235 

Development  of, 

92 

Fascination  of, 

125 

Feeling,  through  fire, 

53 

"Playing  the  game," 

195,  273 

Feeling,  in  house  play, 

33 

Gang: 

Loyalty  to  the, 

89 

See  also  Tribe. 

House  : 

Authority, 

261 

Building,  with  blocks, 

73 

Boys',  origin  of, 

38 

Doll  houses,                 75 

,  78,  274 

Danger  of, 

245 

Playing, 

33 

Instinct  and  development  of, 

Hudson,  W.  H.: 

90,  194 

Play  of  pumas. 

101 

INDEX 


287 


Hunting  : 

Bear,  in  tribe  play,  205 

Feeling,  5,  20,  142,  1-45 

Feeling,  in  animals,  m 

Plays»  16,  83 

Statistics,  20,  114 

Ideal: 

Play,  the  pursuit  of,  266 

Imagination: 

Stimulation  of,  72 

Imitation: 

In  education,  180 

In  play  of  feeble-minded,       134 
Unconscious,  208 

Indian: 

Tribes,  of  Mr.  Seton,  205 

Individualism: 

In  play  of  feeble-minded,       130 
In  play  of  young  children,     148 
Industrialism: 

Growth  of,  212,  220 

Industry : 

Development  of,  in  home,       92 
Initlative  : 
Play,  lack  of,  in  city  children, 

139 

Inspection: 

Medical,  of  school  children,  168 

Instinct : 

Animal,  199 

Animal,  developed  in  play,    110 
Blind,  unreliable,  210 

Domestic,  development  of,      94 
Gang,  90 

Maternal  and  paternal,  87 

Play>  177,  197,  205 

Institution: 

Children,  play  of,  137 

Interest: 

Children's,  significant  for  educa- 
tion, 155 

Development  of,  171 

Pulses  of,  in  play,  145,  164,    17.3 
Pulses  of,  in  work,  174 


James,  William: 

Flying  instinct  in  birds  mi 

Justk  k  : 

In  competitive  period,  1  -  | 

Kindergarten : 

Plays  of  Froebel,  vi,  1S2 

Kirk,  Adrian: 

Play  attitude  in  work,  \tr> 

Kite: 

Play,  151 

Ladder: 

T  Play>  225 

Law: 

Developed  from  shelter  feeling, 

Leader: 

See  also  Teacher. 

Play,  140,  233,  239,  242 

Leadership: 

Play,  12 

Leisure: 

Use  of,  119 

Liberia  : 

Failure  of,  260 

Life: 

Modern  changes  in,  212 

Play  attitude  in,  271,  274 

Reality  of,  in  play,  ]  79 

Social,  through  doll  play,         76 
Social,  through  eating  together, 

M 

Social,  and  the  individual,      257 

Social,  through  ownership,       81 

Social,  through  team  games,    :»1 

Locality: 

Feeling  for,  43 

Love: 

In  literature,  ^2 

Loyalty: 

Group,  91,  190 

Sex  differences  in  reaped  to, 

!»7 
Team,  development  of,  UK) 

Mam.ivkss: 

Athletics  test  of,  ;i£ 


288 


INDEX 


146,  150,  162 


102 
235 


Marbles: 
Play, 

Mills,  Wesley: 
Play  life  of  animals, 

"  Monkey  chase  " : 

Morality  : 

Fighting  plays  developing,       30 
Freedom  and,  250 

Home  and,  217,  219 

Play  and,  184 

Morgan,  Lloyd: 

Chirping  in  eggs,  99 

Moving  picture: 

Evils  of,  122 

Statistics,  115 

Muscle: 

Development  of,  in  city,        167 

Mystery  : 

Fire,  58 

Nature  : 

Interest  in,  144 

What  is  "natural,"  209 

Nervous  system: 

Stress  upon,  in  city,  166 

New  York: 

Defective  children  in,  168 

Newbolt,  Henry: 

Poem  by,  273 

Obedience: 

Absolute  obedience,  non-moral, 

251 
Necessity  of,  247 

Otter: 

Summing  of  young,  201 

Ownership  : 

Construction  and,  67 

Feeling,  development  of,  79 

Feeling,  in  fire,  50 

Feeling,  in  house,  39 


Paris: 

Playgrounds, 

232 

Park: 

Grounds,  use  of,. 

227 

Party  : 

Doll,  social  significance  of,       78 
Pawtucket  : 

Playgrounds,  231 
Personality: 

Desire  and,  280 
Development  of,  by  doing,      74 

Ownership  and,  81 
Philanthropy  : 

Development  of,  254 
Play  : 

Adult,  113 

Anglo-Saxon,  147,  154 

Animal,  99 

Attitude  in  life,  125,  271 

City,  224 

Civilization  and,  211 

Community,  222 

Curriculum,  175 
Definition  of, 

xii,  11,  99,  124,  125,  126,  179, 
267,  269,  270,  277 
Democracy  and,  243 
Direction  and  control,  230 
Education  in  relation  to,        171 
Extent  of,  1,  6 
Fair,  190 
Forms  of,  9 
"Free,"  232 
Froebel's  theory  of,  vi,  182 
Function  of,  124,  169 
Greek,  "Ajax,"  264 
Leadership,  12 
Life  in  relation  to,  10 
Masculine  and  feminine  differ- 
ences in,  83 
Moral  growth  and,  184 
Movement,  7,  8 
Progression,  141 
Pulse  of,  70 
"Pursuit  of  ideal,"  266 
Reason  for,  116 
Seasonal  rotation  of,  150 
Subnormal  children,  play  of,  128 
Team,  191 
Team,  of  girls,  89 


INDEX 


Theories,  90,  116,  117,  182 

Tradition,  235 

Plat  ground     and  Recreation 
Association  of  America:        8 

Playgrounds: 

Boston,  7 

City,  230 

Chicago,  7 

Movement,  8,  9 

New  York,  123 

Pawtucket,  231 

Statistics,  8 

Toledo,  230 

Unsupervised,  122,  230 

WelUmanaged,  244 

Yard,  224 

Playhouse: 

Twenty-storied,  33,  227 

Pleasure: 

Not  life  motive,  274 

Population  : 

City,  212 

Power: 

Increased,  source  of  enjoyment, 

186 

Progression: 

Play,  142,  162 

Property : 

Development  of,  from  shelter,  40 

Pulse: 

Play,  70 

Puma: 

Play  of,  101 

Race: 

Habits,    community,    play    re- 
lated to,  110 
Habits,  play  reverting  to  early, 

118 

Reality  : 

Feeling  of,  in  play,  179 

Recreation  : 

American,  unorganized,  222 

Different  from  play,  123 

Necessity  of,  119 

Reflex: 

Acquiring  of,  early  in  life,      185 


Relationship: 

Human,  on  playground,  ~£U) 
Religion: 

Fire  used  in,  59 

Home,  passing  of,  217 

Rhythm : 

Use  of,  for  feeble-minded,  ISA 
Righteousness  : 

Social,  establishing  of,  198 

Rus,  Jacob: 

Story  by,  266 

Roosevelt,  President  : 

Statement  about  free  play,  2:52 
Rotation  : 

Seasonal,  of  plays,  150 

Running  : 

Interest  in,  26 

Sand: 

Bank,  for  fire  play,  49 

Pile,  14,  225 

Play,  of  adults,  148 

Sawing  : 

Wood,  at  University,  211 

School: 

Children,     defective,     in     New 
York  schools,  168 

Children's  life  in,  221 

Curriculum,  178 

Fires,  248 

Growth  of,  217 

A  monarchy,  2  is 

Science: 

Development  of,  258 

Self-expression  : 

In  play,  IT".  177 

Self-mastery  : 

In  early  play,  1  *s-   : 

Separation  : 

Of  children  in  play,  12 

Seton,  Ernest  Thompson: 

Indian  tribe,  play  of.  I    J 

Play  of  fo  108 

Sex: 

Differences,  in  play.  40 

Differences,  in  shelt«  r  f«t  1 


290 


INDEX 


Shanty: 

In  wood,  33 

Shelter: 

Feeling,  34,  40,  143 

Feeling,  racial  differences,       41 
Skating: 

Roller,  228 

Slavery: 

And  freedom,  260 

Smoke: 

Aesthetic  effects  of,  54 

Religious  significance  of,  60 

Specialization  : 

Growth  of,  213,  255 

Speed : 

Progression,  in  play,  163 

Spelling: 

Teaching  of,  180 

Spontaneity: 

Play,  130 

Story : 

Ghost,  effect  of,  in  firelight,    58 
Street : 

Play  of  children  in,  221 

Striking: 

Origin  of,  26 

Supervision: 

Institution  playgrounds  lacking, 

138 

Necessity  of,  230 

Play,  206 

Supervisor: 

See  also  Teacher. 

Play,  233 

Survival: 

Theory  of  play,  90 

Swimming: 

Learning,  176 

Swing: 

Playground,  224 

Symbol: 

Doll  used  as,  77 

Fire,  63 


Tag: 

See  also  Running. 
Games, 


16 


Origin  of,  26,  28,  187 

Small  children's,  185 

Universality  of,  238 

Teacher: 

Role  of,  in  play, 

71,  195,  222,  240 

Teaching  : 

Instinct  of,  209 

Team  game: 

Of  feeble-minded,  130,  134 

Origin  of,  90 

Social  significance  of,  91 

In  teens,  191 

Woman's  lack  of  team  play,    93 

Tennis: 

Interest  in,  188 

Terrier: 

Scotch,  fighting  instinct  in,     201 

Theory : 

Culture — epoch,  141 

Play,  a  balance  for  work,       116 
Play,  a  return  to  the  simple, 

117 
Play,  survival,  90 

Throwing: 

Interest  in,  23,  27 

Learning  of,  149,  174 

A  masculine  interest,  84 

Toledo  : 

Playgrounds,  230 

Tool-maker: 

Ideal  of,  269 

Toys:  67 

Tradition  : 

Animal  play,  111 

Feeble-minded  play,  134 

Gang,  204 

School,  203 

Social,  in  play, 

89,  177,  189,  197 
Social,  passing  on  of, 

202,  218,  237,  263 

Training  : 

Physical,  in  schools,  168 

Tribe  : 

See  also  Gang. 


INDEX 


291 


Gang,  the  modern  tribe,  92 

Loyalty  to,  89 
Truancy: 

Cause  of,  17S 
Twain,  Mark: 

Play  attitude  of,  125 


Urbanization  : 
Increasing, 

Vitality: 

Developed  by  play, 


212 
166 


Will: 

Deficiency  of,  in  feeble-minded, 

133 
Woman: 

Work  of,  in  home,  217 


Womanliness: 

Athletics  no  test  of,  92 

Wood  : 

Sawing  at  University,  211 

Wood-shed  : 

Need  of,  67 

Work: 

Artistic,  is  play,  268 
Children's,  with  parents,        214 

Joy  in,  272 

Moral  lessons  of,  179 

Wrestling:  29 

Yachting  : 

Statistics,  114 

Yard: 

Playground,  224 


YB  35 II J 


m'&; 


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